(Charleston-AP) January 7, 2007 - An increase in South Carolina's lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax could reduce the amount of smuggling from the state.

Earl Woodham is a spokesman for the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms says the profits from cigarette smuggling are directly proportionate to the state tax. That makes South Carolina with its seve-cents-per-pack tax the most attractive starting location for many smugglers.

A pack of premium cigarettes costs about three dollars and 15 cents in South Carolina. That same pack of costs about seven dollars in New York City, because of that state's three-dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes.

Woodham says his agency is investigating several cigarette smuggling operations in the Carolinas. Woodham also says an increase in South Carolina's cigarette tax could shift some of the smuggling activity to other states.

Posted 5:27pm by Logan Smith