Smoker’s hell

Is it fair to make one segment of society foot the bill for the fiscal problems of the entire state? Some people think it’s more than fair—it’s morally mandatory. And the Democrats are leading the charge, as Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson declares that California’s budget problems will be solved so long as we’re willing to slam the state’s cigarette smokers with a huge tax increase on their poison of choice.

Wesson’s proposal is to resolve the state’s budget impasse by increasing the cigarette tax from 87 cents a pack to $3 per pack—nearly a 250 percent hike. This would raise the retail price of a pack of smokes to $7 per pack in California and produce about $1.7 billion in state revenues. As we all know, legislators haven’t yet figured out a way to resolve a $23.6 billion budget shortfall and several attempts to pass a $100 billion budget have been blocked in the Assembly by Republicans who don’t like the Democrats’ earlier proposal of a broad-based car tax that would have doubled California’s vehicle license fee. Now the Democrats have come up with a new idea: go after the smokers instead. Calling it a “win-win” for the state, Wesson says such a tax jump will both force people to quit smoking and help balance the budget.

How did things ever get so weird in state government?

We know, we know. Operating without a budget is stupid, painful and it’s costing the state $15 million a day. But is it right to penalize the smokers? It has no logic. Officially, the state abhors smoking and says it wants to stop this killing behavior. Meanwhile, we are preparing to have the state’s fiscal solvency rely on people smoking! Consider the irony in a government itself becoming addicted to an activity it claims to be against because it’s addictive.

Groups like the American Lung Association claim that increased tobacco taxes stop people, especially the young, from smoking. Indeed, data show that smoking rates seem to decline where tobacco taxes are high. But most people realize that these numbers simply reflect those who continue to buy legal, in-state cigarettes. In fact, many smokers turn to buying cigarettes online, on tax-free Indian Reservations or from out-of-state sources. Why should we punish the smokers who play by the rules while rewarding those who don’t? Meanwhile, no one doubts that a huge tax jump for smokers would be a gigantic boon for the black market. Cigarette smuggling already exists in California and a tax hike of this magnitude would make this even more prevalent.

Smoking kills and we support the work of the Lung Association and the many others who go after Big Tobacco. We agree that some “sin” taxes are appropriate when the funds generated go to related public health efforts. But a 250 percent tax hike on smokers to solve the state’s budget deficit is wrong. We should ask ourselves what gives us the right to place the burden of balancing the state budget onto one segment of the population, thereby punishing the people already stuck at the other end of a killer addiction.