Tobacco Documents Online

MARTIN T. MEEHAN 5TH DISTRICT. MASSACHUSETTS 1223 LONGWORTH HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON. D.C. 20515 (2021 2225-3411 COMMITTEES: ARMED SERVICES SUBCOMMITTEE ON MWTARY FORCES AND PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS SMALL BUSINESS SUBCOMMITTEE ON SBA LEGISLATION AND THE GENERAL ECONOMY SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULAT7ON. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES AND TECHNOLOGY Qan.gnoo uf tte Rui~eb ~tt#ai ~YIUse IIf RE}II`EBElttai#IUES ® ttshtngtutt, UT 211515-2xll5 STATEMENT BY U.S.. REP. MARTIN T. MEEHAN (D-MA) DISTRICT OFFICES: 11 KEARNEY SO. LOWELL. MA 01852 (5081459-0101 BAY STATE BUILDING 11 LAWRENCE ST. SUITE 806 LAWRENCE. MA 01840 1508) 681-6200 WALKER BUILDING 255 MAIN ST. ROoM 102 MARLBOROUGH. MA 01752 (508) 460-9292 Mr. Chairman, I strongly support President Clinton's proposal to raise tobacco taxes to help pay for the Health Security Act. A tax on tobacco products will raise revenue and save lives by significantly reducing tobacco use. The tobacco industry spends nearly 4 billion dollars a year to advertise and promote smoking while causing health problems that raise costs to our medical system by billions of dollars a year and kill more than 11 hundred Americans a day. One in four Americans will die from a tobacco-related disease this year. Tobacco taxes are a life and death issue. Smoking adds an estimated $24 billion dollars to health costs and takes another $40 billion in productivity from our nation's work force. This amounts to an estimated $565 per taxpayer per year. A tobacco tax is the most effective way to reduce smoking and, most importantly, prevent our children from taking up the habit. Some estimates indicate that 90 percent of all smokers started smoking before the age of 21. A 75 cent tobacco tax would save 900,000 lives and raise $11 billion a year. A $2 tobacco tax would double that figure and save almost 2 million American lives while raising $25 billion a year. In Canada, where cigarette taxes were raised to more than $3 a pack in 1991, smoking among children has dropped by 60 percent and total cigarette consumption is falling faster than in any major industrialized nation. In addition, last January, my home state of Massachusetts approved a 25 cent increase in its cigarette tax and smokers have been quitting in record numbers. In the first eight months, more than 80,000 people in Massachusetts have kicked the habit. Smoking is a personal decision, but it raises public health issues that affect everyone. Smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Cigarettes kill more Americans each year than alcohol, heroin, crack, automobile and airplane accidents, murders, suicides and AIDS combined. Tobacco use causes cancer of the lung, esophagus, mouth and throat, pancreas, kidney and bladder. It is also a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. It can cause pneumonia and lung disease and causes low-birth-weight in babies. A tax on tobacco products could prevent these diseases and premature deaths. I believe that this would constitute one of the most significant contributions of President Clinton's health care proposal even if it failed to raise a single penny of revenue. Opponents will contend that millions of jobs depend on the tobacco industry and an increase in the tobacco tax will result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. The truth is that an increase in the tobacco tax will only affect a fraction of those jobs and it would create new jobs as the money not spent on tobacco products is spent on other goods and services. The decline in the use of tobacco is inevitable. The only question is how inany people have to die before everyone in our society gets the message that smoking kills. I urge my colleagues -- even those from tobacco states -- to have the courage to stand up to the tobacco lobby and put the health of America first. 89735085 PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER