How to Price Our Lifestyle?
Speaker: Andrzej Fal
Chair: Evanthia Sakellari
Professor Andrzej Fal, a key advocate for Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) and public health policies, emphasizes the importance of economic tools such as differential taxation in reducing smoking-related harm. His views on “How to Price Our Lifestyle” focus on leveraging financial instruments, like taxes, to encourage healthier lifestyle choices and support harm reduction efforts. Fal advocates for a “less harm, less tax” approach, arguing that governments should impose higher taxes on traditional combustible cigarettes while offering lower taxes on safer alternatives like heat-not-burn (HnB) devices and e-cigarettes. This price differentiation aims to nudge consumers toward adopting less harmful products, which, in turn, reduces the burden of smoking-related diseases on healthcare systems. He also highlights the long-term economic benefits of prevention. In his view, this economic model is crucial to shifting the public health landscape and addressing the tobacco epidemic more effectively, as seen in the success stories of countries like Sweden, which have embraced harm reduction products to lower smoking rates and tobacco-related diseases.
Speakers
