Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

PRABHAT JHA ET AL. 739
Bans on advertising and promotion
Econometric studies exploring the relationship between cigarette advertising and
cigarette demand have produced mixed findings, with the majority of them concluding
that advertising has, at most, a small positive impact on demand (Townsend 1993;
Chaloupka et al. 2000). However, critics of these studies note that econometric methods,
which estimate the impact of a marginal change in advertising expenditures on smoking,
are ill suited for studying the impact of total advertising (Townsend 1993; Chaloupka
et al. 2000; FTC 2001). All cigarette producers operate at a highly saturated level of advertising
exposure where the effect of a small change in advertising expenditures is almost
untraceable. Approaches employing qualitative methods to evaluate the impact of
cigarette advertising do support the hypothesis that increased exposure leads to higher
cigarette demand (UK Department of Health 1992; USDHHS 1994).
Studying the impact of advertising and promotion bans on cigarette smoking
provides more direct evidence on the impact of advertising (Chaloupka and Warner
2000; Saffer 2000). For example, a recent study predicted that a comprehensive set of
tobacco advertising bans in high-income countries could reduce tobacco consumption
by over 6 per cent, adjusted for price effects (Saffer and Chaloupka 2000). The study
also concludes that partial bans have little impact on smoking behavior, given that the
tobacco industry can shift its resources from the banned media to those that are not
banned.
Smoking initiation and cessation interventions
Preventions of smoking initiation is important for long-term reduction in tobacco
consumption. However, smoking cessation is the key to reversing the current unfavorable
trend in smoking-related mortality over the next few decades.
Several studies using data from the US and the UK have concluded that it is possible to
slow down smoking uptake and to motivate individuals to quit smoking using demand
side interventions. There is some evidence that higher cigarette prices reduce smoking
initiation. One study predicts that a 10 per cent rise in cigarette prices reduces the probability
of smoking initiation from 3 per cent to 10 per cent depending on how initiation
is defined (Tauras et al. 2001). Higher tobacco taxes were linked both to more quit
attempts and quit success. It is estimated that a 5 per cent increase in tax can lead to a
reduction in smoking of approximately 6–9.5 months (Forster and Jones 1999), and
that a 10 per cent increase in cigarette prices increases the percentage of successful cessation
by 8.5 per cent and quit attempts by 2.8 per cent in one year (Levy and Romano
2002). Two economic analyses of US young adults data confirmed a positive and
significant impact of higher cigarette prices on the probability of first-time cessation
as well as on subsequent cessation for those individuals who were unable to remain
smoke-free after at least one prior cessation attempt (Tauras 1999; Tauras and
Chaloupka 1999). According to these studies, a 10 per cent increase in cigarette price
increases the probability of smoking cessation success by 3.4 per cent.