{"id":3961,"date":"2016-10-07T19:11:40","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T19:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2016-10-07T19:11:40","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T19:11:40","slug":"l-a-times-editorial-time-to-increase-californias-cigarette-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3961","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Times editorial — time to increase California’s cigarette tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"la-1475192517-snap-photo\"
Associated Press photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Los Angeles Times has come out in favour of Proposition 56, a November ballot initiative which would raise California’s cigarette tax by $2 a pack.<\/p>\n

This is the third time California has tried a ballot measure raising its cigarette tax (The State Legislature is too yellow to do it themselves.). A more modest $1 a pack proposal in 2012 lost by less than 1\/2 of 1 percent of the vote (It lost by less than 25,000 votes out of 5 million ballots cast) after Big Tobacco spent more than $40 million to defeat it.<\/p>\n

Most of the money from this tax increase is specifically earmarked for\u00a0Medi-Cal.<\/p>\n

So, every bit helps.<\/p>\n

From the L.A. Times:<\/a><\/p>\n

… tobacco taxes are really a brilliant and beautiful thing: They not only bring in revenue for government\u00a0but also serve a social good in the process. On average, peer-reviewed studies have shown, a 10% increase in the total\u00a0price of cigarettes\u00a0will yield a 3% to 4% reduction in adult consumption \u2014\u00a0and a 7% reduction among\u00a0young smokers.<\/p>\n

While bringing down smoking rates, the tax also would bring in between $1 billion and $1.4 billion in its first full year \u2014 2017-18\u00a0\u2014 after which, the revenue\u00a0would decline slowly as the number of smokers shrinks. Some of the money would go to administration and enforcement of the tax itself; a sizable chunk would go to tobacco prevention and control programs; a portion would go toward research on cancer, heart and lung disease and other tobacco-related diseases. But the bulk of the funds would go to Medi-Cal, the state\u2019s health insurance program for low-income residents \u2014 specifically, to pay healthcare providers more to treat Medi-Cal patients.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many people are surprised to hear this, but California actually has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the country — just 87 cents a pack. The national average for state taxes is about $1.65 a pack, so California is barely half the national average.<\/p>\n

This proposal would jump California from the 37th highest cigarette excise tax in the country to ninth.<\/p>\n

Increasing cigarette taxes has been shown time and again to be one of the most effective ways to cut the smoking rate. It gives people extra incentive to quit and kids extra incentive to not start to begin with. I mean, if someone is smoking just a pack a day of cigarettes, with this cigarette tax, quitting would save you $2.87 a day. That’s about $1,000 a year. That’s just one pack a day.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting that Big Tobacco would spend so much in California trying to beat it, because California already has one of the lowest smoking rates in the country. But, if the measure cut the smoking rate by just 5\u00a0percent … that’s 5\u00a0percent coming from the biggest state in the country. That’s maybe 200,000 to 250,000\u00a0smokers, multiply that by maybe $1,000 a year they would no longer be spending on cigarettes (and this is for perpetuity) … you start seeing why Big Tobacco cares.<\/p>\n

The tobacco industry is already trying to spread lies that the initiative would somehow take money away from schools. From the L.A. Times editorial:<\/p>\n

The battle to pass Proposition 56 will be tough, as always, because of the power of the tobacco lobby, which already is making deceptive claims like this one: \u201cProp 56\u00a0cheats schools\u00a0out of at least $600 million per year.\u201d That\u2019s baloney.\u00a0Proposition\u00a056 wouldn\u2019t take\u00a0a penny from schools; it would merely exempt the new tobacco tax revenue from the requirements of\u00a0Proposition\u00a098, the 1988 measure which guarantees public\u00a0schools a large share of the state\u2019s core revenues. Many\u00a0initiatives include such an exemption.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe the cynical, disingenuous\u00a0opponents of this measure. Proposition 56 will save lives. The Times urges a yes vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Times has come out in favour of Proposition 56, a November ballot initiative which would raise California’s cigarette tax by $2 a pack. This is the third time California has tried a ballot measure raising its cigarette tax (The State Legislature is too yellow to do it themselves.). A more modest $1 … Continue reading L.A. Times editorial — time to increase California’s cigarette tax<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[350,382],"tags":[688,385],"class_list":["post-3961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-california","category-cigarette-taxes","tag-california","tag-cigarette-taxes-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/la-1475192517-snap-photo.jpg?fit=750%2C422&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hpEa-11T","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3696,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3696","url_meta":{"origin":3961,"position":0},"title":"Another attempt being made to raise cigarette taxes in California","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You might not believe this, but cigarette taxes in California are among the lowest in the entire U.S. California's cigarette tax is only 87 cents a pack, which is barely half of the average $1.50 a pack state tax in the U.S. \u00a0California has the 35th-highest state tobacco tax rate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=350"},"img":{"alt_text":"golden gate bridge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/golden-gate-bridge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3881,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3881","url_meta":{"origin":3961,"position":1},"title":"Cigarette tax proposals in California, Missouri, West Virginia","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Good news, bad news on the cigarette tax front. First the good news: California Proponents of raising California's cigarette tax from 87 cents a pack to $2.87 a pack say they have nearly twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November 2016 ballot. They were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=350"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4030,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4030","url_meta":{"origin":3961,"position":2},"title":"Philip Morris keeps trying to undermine California’s tobacco tax","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"May 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Hello again from the Lounge, especially to all of our new readers from India. Big Tobacco twice succeeded, spending tens of millions of dollars in the process, in having \u00a0cigarette tax increase measures beaten back in California. The industry also for many years had successfully lobbied the California State Legislature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=350"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/920x920.jpg?fit=920%2C634&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/920x920.jpg?fit=920%2C634&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/920x920.jpg?fit=920%2C634&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/920x920.jpg?fit=920%2C634&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4189,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=4189","url_meta":{"origin":3961,"position":3},"title":"Montana puts huge cigarette tax increase on ballot","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"September 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Another ballot measure to watch. 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