Increase the cigarette tax for the right reason

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Cigarette smoking in South Carolina is a huge problem of public health and health-care costs. The state government can and should act to reduce this problem.

The single most important step is to increase the per-pack cigarette tax by 93 cents, from 7 cents to 1 dollar. Taking this step would dramatically decrease the numbers of new young smokers and the total number of smokers in South Carolina without taking a penny of state money away from education, health care and our other state budget priorities.

South Carolina has one of the highest teen smoking rates in the United States. About one-third of South Carolina high school students (36 percent) are cigarette smokers. Of adult smokers, 89 percent started smoking in high school or middle school. Clearly, reducing the number of teens who start smoking is as important as helping current smokers quit.

An increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes is more likely to deter a teenager from smoking than an adult. The National Cancer Institute has recently reported that raising cigarette excise taxes is an effective step to decreasing smoking rates. For every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, there is a 7 percent decrease in youth smoking. In South Carolina, a 93-cent increase in the price of a pack of cigarettes would reduce youth smoking by 21 percent. In a year, South Carolina would have 60,000 fewer smokers and 19,200 fewer premature smoking-related deaths.

Decreasing smoking rates would also lead to savings in health-care costs. South Carolina spends $854 million annually to treat tobacco-related illnesses. Of this amount, $307 million comes from the state government in costs to Medicaid. These "smoking" costs are paid by taxes and health insurance premiums from all taxpayers, despite the fact that 74 percent of South Carolinians are nonsmokers. Even a modest decrease in smoking rates and in these large costs would save South Carolina a lot of money.

2004 marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark U.S. surgeon general's report on the adverse health effects of smoking. The governor, legislators and citizens of South Carolina know well that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, stroke, heart attacks, emphysema and a long list of other serious illnesses.

We also know well that being around cigarette smoking, also known as exposure to "secondhand" smoke, contributes to low-birth-weight babies, sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, respiratory and ear infections, and another long list of illnesses. Finally, we know all too well that cigarette smoking is terribly addictive, that 70 percent of smokers would like to quit, but that precious few are able to quit successfully.

In 2004, South Carolina has an opportunity to decrease the burden of cigarette smoking in our state. The Legislature can pass and the governor can sign a bill to raise the cigarette tax by 93 cents from 7 cents to 1 dollar. The right reason to raise the cigarette tax by 93 cents is to save lives and to improve the health of the citizens of South Carolina.

Additionally, this change in the tax on a pack of cigarettes could save $1 billion in South Carolina health-care costs in the long term. The 93-cent increase in the cigarette tax has been endorsed by the South Carolina Cancer Alliance, the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative and the American Cancer Society.

At 7 cents per pack since 1977, South Carolina has one of the lowest cigarette excise taxes in the United States. Our rates of adult and youth smoking and our rates of death due to lung cancer, heart attack and stroke are among the highest in the country. We can do better. We should do better.

The pressing need for an increase in the cigarette tax is not to "tax and spend." It is not to increase government spending or to "throw good money after bad." South Carolina needs to raise the cigarette tax by 93 cents to save its children from smoking. Let's pass the 93-cent cigarette tax legislation this year and thereby do the right thing for the right reason.