22 April 2018 — 1711 mdt

healthymontana.org needs to document its claims on I-185

healthymontana.org, the minimalist website promoting I-185, the initiative to raise Montana’s taxes on tobacco makes many claims. For example:

• Without this initiative, 19,000 Montana kids will die prematurely from smoking.
• Every Montana household now pays nearly $779 extra in taxes annually to help cover the cost of smoking.
• Increasing the state cigarette tax $2 per pack will:
Prevent 4,800 premature deaths.
Decrease youth smoking rates by 20.6 percent.
Prevent 8,000 Montana kids from becoming adult smokers.
Help 9,300 adults quit smoking.
• [Prevent] nearly 100,000 of our friends and neighbors from losing their existing health care coverage through Medicaid.

Most or all of these claims may be true, but none is linked to the source of the information supporting it. The website’s attitude is, “Trust us, no need to verify.”

My attitude is, “If your claim is trustworthy, you should not be afraid to reveal the sources of the information on which it is based.”

I’m skeptical that “Every Montana household now pays nearly $779 extra in taxes….” It’s literally untrue because not all households pay taxes. Perhaps the author meant to say “On average, Montana households….”

And I’m skeptical that the reduction in youth smoking rates can be predicted with a precision of one part in one thousand.

At this point, I cannot recommend healthymontana.org as a source of reliable information. And I cannot understand why a project that’s been in the works for hundreds of days is so stingy with information and so fearful of providing citations.