More expensive e-cigarettes: The new tobacco tax is a lie

Cigarettes will be more expensive from 2022, but the price of e-cigarettes in particular will then increase significantly. Tobacco reform will therefore do the opposite of its intended purpose - and should be revised.

Apparently, the warnings didn't get through: the Bundestag passed a last-minute reform of the tobacco tax on Friday. The federal government and the Ministry of Finance under Olaf Scholz (SPD) are thus ignoring addiction researchers and doctors.

Cigarettes will become more expensive in the future, by 50 cents per pack by 2026. That is correct. However, e-cigarettes are becoming significantly more expensive in relation to each other, whether with or without nicotine, or rather: the necessary liquid for the devices.

For a 10 milliliter liquid, which currently costs around 5 euros, 1.60 euros more tax will be due next year. By 2026, the surcharge is to increase to 3.20 euros.

The problem: This form of smoking is considered to be significantly less harmful to health than smoking classic tobacco products. In particular, people who want to get away from cigarettes often use the electrical alternative. If in doubt, you can use it to get the addictive nicotine, but do without the particularly dangerous toxins such as tar.

New law is a blow to science

In the future, smokers will think twice about switching to e-cigarettes, or just find their way back to the cigarette butt as consumers of e-cigarettes.

In particular, people on low incomes, who reach for cigarettes more often than higher earners, are likely to stick to the carcinogenic cigarette butts in the future. The tobacco tax is actually a steering tax. It's supposed to keep people from smoking - now it's doing the opposite.

The new law is a blow to science, a tax for tax's sake. It is purely for revenue generation and ignores expert advice. It is also no consolation that hookahs, which motivate young people to smoke, will soon become more expensive.

The e-cigarette industry has already announced resistance and wants to go before the Federal Constitutional Court. Otherwise the EU will take care of it.

At the end of this year she wants to make a proposal for an EU-wide tobacco reform. At the latest when the new government has to revise the law, the national unilateral effort should be cashed out. It is to be hoped.