The tax for smoking? An Analysis of the relationship between the price of tobacco and quitting smoking in Nigeria and Senegal
INTRODUCTION
It is recognized that tobacco consumption creates risks and social costs related to health care. Several efforts are made every year to reduce smoking. The World Health Organization has developed a framework convention to help countries implement a range of measures to reduce tobacco use. One of the measures is related to the increase of taxes on tobacco. However, it is reported that in more than 80% of the countries in the world, tobacco taxation does not reach the highest level of enforcement. This gap remains to be overcome in most countries with regard to the application of the tax measure. This is the case of the ECOWAS countries, where there is a lack of use of taxation as a tobacco control policy. The effectiveness of measures to increase cigarette prices on smoking behavior therefore remains to be proven. In order to potentially assess this effectiveness, CRES has carried out research on the impact of tobacco price on quitting smoking in Senegal and Nigeria. This policy brief provides information on the results of quitting smoking in these two ECOWAS countries for which data are available.