What do we know about the effects of e-cigarette taxes?

The American Lung Association lists as one of their legislative priorities to “raise the tax on e-cigarettes to parity with cigarettes.” In late 2019, the US House of Representatives passed such a tax, and in the current Congressional session legislators have introduced similar bills in both the House and the Senate. Meanwhile, 28 states have enacted e-cigarette taxes of varying magnitudes, with some actually exceeding the cigarette tax equivalency. In this presentation, I summarize the quasi-experimental research on e-cigarette taxes to date. These studies generally find across a variety of populations and data sets, that e-cigarette taxes sharply reduce e-cigarette use and sharply increase more dangerous cigarette use, suggesting that these taxes may overall harm public health. I suggest an alternative legislative priority instead of increasing taxes on alternative combustible tobacco products like cigars, whose taxes are in many cases overdue for raising.