Alaska’s War on Quitting: Nicotine Pouches Now Getting Crushed

There's a common-sense rule in economics: What you reward, you get more of. What you tax, you get less of.

Alaska - yes, my beloved Alaska - apparently is saddled with a state legislature that doesn't want Alaskans to quit smoking. A new bill that has just cleared the legislature in Juneau is placing a heavy tax on tobacco products, and also, inexplicably, on a non-tobacco product that can actually help people quit smoking. The bill is SB 24, and the relevant language in the bill is:

Sec. 43.50.300. Excise tax levied. An excise tax is levied on tobacco products, synthetic nicotine products, and nicotine substitutes in the state at the rate of 75 percent of the wholesale price of the tobacco products.

Note that several Alaska towns and cities already place local taxes on tobacco products, including Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and a few others. But note the "nicotine substitutes" callout; these include nicotine pouches, which are frequently used like nicotine patches, to reduce the urge, to help people quit smoking.

In other words, the Alaska legislature is making it harder, or at least, more expensive, for people to stop smoking. The FDA said about these products:

The FDA determined that the specific products receiving marketing authorization met the public health standard legally required by the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This standard considers the risks and benefits of products to the population as a whole.
Among several key considerations, the agency’s evaluation showed that, due to substantially lower amounts of harmful constituents than cigarettes and most smokeless tobacco products, such as moist snuff and snus, the authorized products pose lower risk of cancer and other serious health conditions than such products. The applicant also provided evidence from a study showing that a substantial proportion of adults who use cigarette and/or smokeless tobacco products completely switched to the newly authorized nicotine pouch products.

The FDA doesn't mention, mind you, the use of these products to help smokers them kick the habit, but they do point out that the pouches are safer than cigarettes, and that a significant number of people are likely to switch completely to the safer product.

Smokers Using Nicotine Pouches to Quit Smoking - So Now Illinois Is Taxing Them

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that these products can be useful in helping smokers to quit.

The association of nicotine pouch use with (Smokeless tobacco) SLT use is expected given product similarities. However, to our knowledge, this is the first study to show that daily nicotine pouch use is most prevalent among adults who recently quit using another tobacco product, with the largest association, after SLT use, observed among adults who recently quit cigarettes.

That's a little fuzzy as well, but it would seem to indicate that pouch use is more common among people who have recently quit using "another tobacco product," although it's admittedly unclear whether there's a cause-and-effect relationship.

Still, nicotine patches have been used for years to help people quit smoking. And these pouches are not tobacco products, and while not risk-free - nothing is - they contain much lower portions of harmful substances than actual tobacco.

Not being a fan of sin taxes for any reason, I find this move by the Alaska Legislature baffling. Why tax tobacco and then include a tax on a related product that is not tobacco and has the possibility of helping smokers quit? There's no sense to this, and Governor Dunleavy should await this bill with his veto stick close at hand.

Editor's Note: Do you enjoy RedState's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.