Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Smokers, like all people, respond to incentives. One powerful incentive is price. When something becomes more expensive, people are less likely to consume that item. This fact is borne out in the extensive literature on the impact of cigarette taxes on smoking: As prices rise through taxes, fewer people smoke. This happens by keeping non-smokers, including youth, from starting in the first place and by encouraging current smokers to quit. But do increases in cigarette taxes in one state incentivize smokers (or tobacco retailers and wholesalers) to cross the border into neighboring states where cigarettes […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The opioid epidemic continues to take a devastating toll in Indianapolis and across the state. While there are no silver bullets, there are interventions that have strong evidence for impact. Chief among them is medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. MAT is often controversial because of the common misconception that it simply substitutes one drug for another (i.e., methadone for heroin). On the contrary, medications like buprenorphine and methadone provide a limited dosage to reduce cravings and withdrawal and help individuals with opioid use disorder on their path to recovery. Most importantly, it works. There is ample […]