When Cigarettes Cost More, People Drink Less. Except For Wine

For those who count Don Draper among their TV loves (or love-to-hates), it comes as no surprise that drinking and smoking go hand in hand.

Public health researchers have long known that smokers tend to drink, drinkers tend to smoke, and heavy smokers (see: nearly anyone on Mad Men) tend to drink even more heavily.

We’ve also known that increasing state taxes on cigarettes actually reduces smoking and helps people break the habit.

Raising cigarette taxes also lowers the amount of drinking, the most recent analysis finds. The study, published Wednesday in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, highlights the tie between the vices.

“It seems logical that as smoking decreases due to these policies that drinking might also decrease,” Melissa Krauss, a data analyst at the Washington University School of Medicine and one of the authors of the study, tells Shots.

However, the beneficial effect only applied to beer and spirits, not wine. Wine drinkers, the authors say, are more likely to have healthier lifestyle habits than beer or spirits drinkers. As Krauss says: “[The results] made sense to us because prior research shows that wine drinkers are less likely to smoke.” (Granted, this doesn’t explain Betty Draper’s propensity to light up.)


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