STATESVILLE, N.C.--With North Carolina about to
relinquish its title as home of the nation's cheapest cigarettes, customers
lined up Tuesday to buy their last cartons filled with packs taxed only a nickel
each.
Starting Thursday, the nation's lowest cigarette tax will rise to
30-cents-a-pack, jumping to 35 cents in July.
"I think it's very unfair," said Kathy Pardue, 34, of Hamptonville, who had
just bought cartons of Marlboro and Winston cigarettes at JR Tobacco, a huge
outlet store in Statesville that caters to smokers. "We live in the state that
produces the most tobacco in the country, and it looks like all the government
wants to do is get rid of (tobacco) farmers.
"What do they want to do, put all the tobacco farmers on welfare?" she said.
"Leave them alone."
But smokers like Pardue won't have far to travel to find cheap smokes. At
7-cents-a-pack, South Carolina is about to become the state with the nation's
lowest cigarette tax. The average cigarette tax in the Southeast is 32 cents a
pack; the nation's highest cigarette tax is in Rhode Island, at $2.46 a pack.
JR Tobacco runs three stores in the state, all along Interstates 40 and 95,
and sells cigarettes on the Internet. The tax hike has spurred strong sales in
recent weeks, said Joanna Wilkinson, manager of JR Tobacco's Statesville store.
"We're making sure everyone knows that this is their last chance to buy
before the tax goes up," she said. "The interesting thing about it is that 92
percent of our sales are to people from outside the state. They have no idea the
tax is going up, and they could really care less."
Joe Foster, 59, a trucker from Texas, came to JR's on Tuesday to pick up
three cartons of his favorite brand, Monarch.
"As far as I know, North Carolina has the cheapest cigarettes I've ever
found, and I've been all over this country," he said. "In California and New
York you can pay $5, $6 or $7 a pack."
For several years, health advocates lobbied for a tax increase of
75-cents-a-pack in North Carolina, saying it was the most effective way to
reduce teen smoking. Studies have shown teen smoking drops 7 percent for every
10-cent increase in cigarette taxes, said Susan King-Cope, vice president of
programs and advocacy at the American Lung Association of North Carolina.
"The tobacco industry itself has said this is a fair tax," King-Cope said
Tuesday from Raleigh. "The ones who have been giving us a run are the mini-marts
and the big retailers like JR's. We're glad the tobacco industry saw it was
fair, but it makes us think we could have asked for even a little more."
For years, major cigarette companies -- including Winston-Salem-based
Reynolds American Inc., the nation's second-largest cigarette maker -- worked to
kill efforts to increase the state's cigarette tax.
The companies were aligned with farmers who argued a higher tax could further
erode demand for their tobacco leaf and diminish the value of a proposed buyout
of the federal price-support system, which propped up their crop prices.
Congress approved a buyout last year that will pay $3.9 billion to 80,000
North Carolinians. After it passed, some farmers quit growing tobacco, while
many others dropped their opposition to the tax increase.
This year, Gov. Mike Easley proposed raising the cigarette tax to 50 cents
over two years to help cover a $1 billion budget shortfall. Polls found nearly
60 percent of those surveyed supported the governor's idea, but when the tax
increase finally passed this year, the state Legislature had trimmed it to the
immediate boost of 30 cents.
Even though he was not aware of the looming tax hike in North Carolina,
Foster said he wasn't surprised to hear that politicians had increased the price
of cigarettes.
"I would say about 90 percent of the politicians don't smoke but most of them
drink," he said. "Why don't they increase the taxes on alcohol?"
