Tobacco use has declined sharply since the 1960s, but for the past 20 years about 20 percent of the population has continued to smoke. The imposition of steep tobacco taxes in many states has not lowered the smoking rate.
Now an economist has published an unusual study in the December issue of PLoS One that suggests a reason: About half the population has a variation in a specific gene connected to nicotine addiction that makes them more likely to respond to cigarette tax increases.
Jason M. Fletcher, an associate professor of health policy at Yale, used data on 6,178 adults in a large national health survey that gathered information on smoking habits and also collected biological specimens for genotyping.
About half of the subjects had a variation in a gene for a nicotine receptor in the brain that is thought to control the pleasure reward of nicotine consumption. Fletcher tracked the statistical relationship between taxation, smoking and this gene.
He found that a 100 percent increase in taxes had a significant effect only on people with this particular genetic variation in DNA sequence. The other half of the population was immune to the effect of taxation.
Fletcher urged caution in interpreting his findings since this is the first study of its kind. Still, he said, "As we get more and more convinced that people with certain genotypes may respond differently to policies, that means that alternative policies may be necessary."
-New York Times Service.
