Cigarette Tax Hike Would Make People Give up Smoking

Published on March 9, 2009 8:38 AM

When you were thinking about smoking discount cigarettes two years ago, I bet you thought only of health complications that are related with smoking. Nowadays the first thought that will come across a smoker’s mind after new bill comes into effect would be the huge price of cigarettes. 
In compliance with the bill recently signed by President Obama, federal cigarette tax will increase up to 62cents per a single pack when it comes into effect on April 1. That will get the nation's average cost of a pack of cigarettes to almost $5. And it would definitely hit smokers’ pockets  being the main reason for thousands of heavy smokers to kick their habit.

According to the data collected by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the latter tax increase signifies that smokers will have to give from $2 to $3, 5 to state and federal treasury for a pack of cigarettes in 27 states and the District of Columbia. The smokers from New York will get the highest tax burden, paying a total of $3.76 in state and federal taxes for every pack. Moreover, these numbers don't contain local cigarette taxes, as for example the $1.50 per pack tax paid by New York City smokers.

Tom Houston, M.D., director of Ohio Health's Nicotine Dependence Program and clinical professor in the family medicine department at Ohio State University in Columbus thinks that increasing cigarette prices is the best way to reduce the number of smokers in the country, much better than any public smoking bans, since with the present economic situation the number of people who can afford themselves to buy a 2, 5 $ cigarette pack is decreasing.

Hence, the newly signed bill has faced mixed reactions. James Mitchell, a chemistry teacher from Bridgetown High School complained that the tax increase would hit those heavy old-time smokers, who have been nicotine addicted for a long time. He stated that smokers would not have many options: they either would pay this larger-than-life price for a single pack or pay even more for rehabilitation and smoking cessation therapies that also include expensive consultations with psychologists or try to find other maybe illegal methods of getting cigarettes. In any case the situation is very sad for these people.