People with Mental Illness and Cigarette Tax Increase

This month in Kentucky tobacco tax was doubled, believing that it would push some current smokers to quit and will keep youth from starting smoking.

Anthenelli, director of the TriState Tobacco and Alcohol Research Center at the University of Cincinnati, said: "These cigarettes tax increases have unintended consequences, especially for the seriously mentally ill, people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder. They smoke at rates three to four times the general population, and they can ill-afford the tax increase. They're mostly on fixed incomes."

People who are ill mentally are more addicted than a normal and healthy person, that’s why they are more affected by cigarette tax increase, reported researchers.

Better for all people of course is to not smoking, but people with mental illness can't always access the same smoking cessation aids available to the rest of the population. According to a recent study from New Jersey, was found that adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder spent more than 27 percent of their monthly income only on cigarettes.
Several medications are available to help smokers who are trying to quit, but little research has been done to see how well the medications work for people with mental illness, found anti-smoking researchers.

Approximately 60% to 80% of people with schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses smoke cigarettes, a rate of roughly 4 times higher than that of the general population in Canada, specified researchers.