Increasing the cost of beer, tobacco and sugary drinks does reduce their consumption, scientists indicate
▲ Yesterday, Morenoist senator Beatriz Mojica presented an alternative to the special tax on production and services (IEPS) paid by alcoholic beverages, which would improve profits and open the market to artisanal producers.Darkroom Photo
Ángeles Cruz Martínez
La Jornada Newspaper
Wednesday, October 8, 2025, p. 26
With a 10 percent increase in the price of beer, sugary drinks and tobacco, consumption would drop 12, 10 and 7 percent, respectively, which in turn would reduce the associated burden of illness and death, said experts from John Hopkins University, the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP) and the National Institute of Public Health (INSP).
They urged legislators to approve increases in taxes on these ultra-processed products and sugary drinks; The latter generate 30 percent of diabetes cases, a condition that causes more than 100,000 deaths each year, they highlighted.
During the discussion of the 2026 Income Law project, where the Executive Branch proposes increasing taxes on the consumption of these goods, specialists rejected that taxes only serve to strengthen government coffers. Its main objective is to reduce consumption without causing an increase in illicit trade. This has been demonstrated in independent scientific research.
They argued that consumption taxes are the best alternative, the most effective to reduce the burden of diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, among others.
In a document signed by Juan Rivera Dommarco, INSP emeritus researcher; the specialists from the same institute Juan Carlos Salgado and Mishel Unar, as well as Luis Huesca, from the Center for Research in Food and Development (CIAD); Alejandra Macías, director of the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP), and health economist Carlos Guerrero, of Economics for Health-Johns Hopkins University, expressed their support for healthy taxes.
They assured that the costs of diseases associated with tobacco, alcoholic and sugary drinks affect to a greater extent people with low incomes, who are forced to spend on health care, stop purchasing essential goods and face loss of productivity due to disability and premature deaths caused by these products.
