E-Cigarette Taxes Won’t Necessarily Cause An Increase In Smoking, Study Says
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, April 20, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Regulators have long been reluctant to tax e-cigarettes, worried that higher prices might unintentionally drive vapers back to tobacco cigs. But a new study suggests those fears might be misplaced, at least where adult vapers are concerned. Higher prices reduced e-cigarette use among a nationwide sample of 700 adult vapers, and sometimes caused people to switch between different types of vape devices. But there was no statistically significant evidence that raising e-cigarette prices would lead to more tobacco smoking, researchers report in the journal Health Economics. “Our findings suggest that increasing e-cigarette prices can effectively reduce vaping without the unintended consequence of more smoking among adult vapers,” said lead researcher Shaoying Ma, a research scientist at the Center for Tobacco Research at Ohio State University. “However, because adult vapers navigate a complex marketplace of disposables, pods and tanks, a one-size-fits-all tax may not be sufficient to reduce nicotine consumption,” Ma said in a news release. “Policymakers may consider tiered tax designs to achieve specific …
