Health advocates’ call last week to balance the state budget by raising taxes on cigarettes is being met by local smokers with less than enthusiastic support.

“Whenever they need money, they say, let’s tax smokers. I think they just use smokers as scapegoats,” said Nikki Malm, manager of the Cigaret Shopper in North Windham.

Malm said she thinks obesity causes more health problems than smoking, and if health advocates were truly worried about people’s health, “they should tax chocolate, candy bars and other junk food as well. They are much worse than smoking,” she said.

Since the Legislature’s dollar tax increase per pack of cigarettes in 2005, Malm, who said Cigaret Shopper has 10 stores spanning from Portland to Presque Isle, has seen smokers switch over to other forms of tobacco.

“We’re not worried about business dropping. It’s actually the opposite. We’re very steady and more and more people are rolling their own and buying small cigars,” Malm said. She said packs of small cigars are rolled in brown paper and have a little different smell but for the most part are very similar to cigarettes and cost much less.

“For a pack of filtered cigars you’re talking $2 to $4 dollars a pack. Yeah, they’re a little different but for a smoker on a budget they’ll take what they can get,” Malm said.

Waterboro resident Russell Mathis, who drives for AT&T throughout the southern end of the state, agrees with Malm that the state unfairly targets smokers every time there’s a budget shortfall.

“It seems they’re trying to tax the little guy. But they’re whacking the people who can’t afford it,” said Mathis, who now rolls his own cigarettes.

While health advocates such as the American Lung Association of Maine and American Heart Assoication are calling for higher cigarette taxes, Gov. John Baldacci’s office has put forth a budget that closes a $438 million budget gap without raising taxes.

“The governor has presented his plan and he thinks that plan is the most prudent way to close the gap between expected revenue and expected spending,” Baldacci spokesman David Farmer said. “We’ve made our plan and now it goes to the Legislature.”

Asked if Baldacci will reject any new tax proposal, including the cigarette increase, Farmer replied, “It’s premature to say anything like that … In the past, the governor has supported a tax increase on cigarettes.”

A dollar tax increase would please Edward Miller, vice president of the American Lung Association of New England. He attended a news conference last Monday at the State House in Augusta where health advocates lobbied for the dollar increase. He said Baldacci’s proposed cuts to various social programming as a way to balance the budget will “really start hurting people.” In addition to the tax increase on cigarettes, Miller would like to see related tobacco products taxed more heavily as well.

“We need more equalization of taxes on tobacco products, not merely cigarettes,” said Miller, a former smoker himself. “The only difference between small cigars and cigarettes is that small cigars have tobacco in the paper. And in that way, they avoid the tax. We’d like to see that change.”

In 2008, Miller said, the state received $143.7 million in revenue from the sale of cigarettes. He said if the tax were increased a dollar, which would bring taxes to $3 per pack, revenue would increase $26 to $27 million per year until rates dropped with people quitting due to the higher tax, which is health advocates’ goal, he said. He said the state could apply that $27 million to Medicaid, which would qualify the state for an extra $54 million from federal Medicaid matching funds.

“For every $1 that the state puts into Medicaid, the feds put in $2. So, you apply this money to the Medicaid program and that’s about $90 million more in health services. With an expected $200 million shortfall in health services, that’s serious money that the governor and Legislature should consider very carefully,” Miller said.

All these numbers don’t faze Jeff Blake of Casco very much. While perusing the shelves of tobacco products at the Cigaret Shopper in Windham last week, Blake called the proposal “ridiculous.”

“They need to take it out on somebody else for a change,” he said. “Find somebody else to tax, rather than smokers.”

Jeff Blake buys a pack of cigarettes from manager Nikki Malm at the Cigaret Shopper in North Windham last week. Cigarette smokers may be paying a dollar more per pack if health advocates in Maine can convince Gov. John Baldacci and the Legislature of raising cigarette taxes to help balance the budget. (Staff photo by John Balentine)

Copy the Story Link