Trebling tobacco tax ‘could prevent 200 million early deaths’
by The Daily Eye Team January 4 2014, 2:48 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 33 secs(Reuters) – Trebling tobacco tax globally would cut smoking by a third and prevent 200 million premature deaths this century from lung cancer and other diseases, researchers said on Wednesday. In a review in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists from the charity Cancer Research UK (CRUK) said hiking taxes by a large amount per cigarette would encourage people to quit smoking altogether rather than switch to cheaper brands, and help stop young people from taking up the habit. As well as causing lung cancer, which is often fatal, smoking is the largest cause of premature death from chronic conditions like heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure.