SMOKING BY ADOLESCENTS - LARGE REVENUE BUT LITTLE FOR PREVENTION

The purpose of this paper is to report on the government revenue gaine d from the sale of cigarettes to minors and the proportion of this rev enue that is spent on attempting to prevent adolescents from taking up this habit. Prevalence of smoking by minors was extrapolated for the individual states using Australian prevalence data; estimates of annua l cigarette consumption were coupled with the respective cost of cigar ettes in each state to derive an estimate of the total revenue accumul ating from cigarette consumption by minors. From our analysis, approxi mately 211 000 Australian children under the legal age to purchase cig arettes consumed approximately 11.5 million packets of cigarettes in 1 990. The estimated tax revenues to the federal and state governments f rom these sales were $8.42 million and $12.78 million respectively. Wh ile the average state revenue from cigarette consumption by minors dur ing 1990 was just over $60 per under-age smoker, only $0.11 per under- age smoker was spent on anti-smoking campaigns in 1990. This is equiva lent to approximately 0.002 per cent of state revenue from cigarette s moking by those under the legal purchase age being spent on discouragi ng adolescents from taking up this habit. Clearly, there is an inequit able expenditure on antismoking activities, given the enormous resourc es obtained from sales to minors.