Dr Rob Branston presents 'A new avenue for tobacco control: price cap regulation'

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https://uqz.zoom.us/j/83069141687?pwd=raHf77OM7GZtTj1XkdTObyAWg36sBA.1

Passcode: 783428

The tobacco industry generates substantial profits from selling products causing significant health and societal costs. These profits enable the industry to use price as a flexible marketing tool, including using market segmentation and pricing strategies to undermine the intended outcomes of increased tobacco taxation. Consequently, there have been calls for a scheme to cap the wholesale price of tobacco products and to offset this with higher taxation, thereby reducing price variation and raising tax revenue - an approach labelled as a  ‘polluter pays levy scheme’ by advocacy organisations in the UK, and a forward looking measure by the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) expert group. In this talk, Dr Rob Branston will explore the rationale for such an endgame scheme, including reporting on the modelling of the health and economic impact of such a scheme in England. Six illustrative scenarios for implementing a wholesale price cap and concomitant tax rises are explored relative to a business-as-usual scenario of an annual 2% real terms tax escalator. The modelling shows that a tobacco price cap and tax increase would raise a substantial amount of additional tax revenue, improve health, and reduce health inequalities, while also reducing the scope to use price as a tobacco marketing tool.