The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: To identify the policy options to reduce the harms involved in tobacco taxation.

Methods: Searches of Medline, ECONbase and Google Scholar to find literature on the policy options. Ethical frameworks considered maximizing benefits and minimizing injustice.

Results: The options to reduce harm and maximize benefit include: (1) The dedication of tobacco tax revenue to tobacco control activity; (2) Intensive, comprehensive, well managed tobacco control programmes to quickly reduce the prevalence of smoking for all societal groups; (3) The use of programmes to maximize smoking cessation in the least privileged groups; and (4) Having a progressive tax system overall (eg, including income, capital gains and asset taxes), and ensuring sufficient health and social services support for low income households where smoking cessation does not occur.