Cigarette Tax Increase Reduce Teen Smoking

South Carolina Senate could give final approval to a plan to raise our state's cigarette tax from the lowest in the nation, at a cancer-inducing 7 cents per pack, to the ninth lowest, at 57 cents. If senators don't change the way the revenue is spent, the entire effort will be a colossal waste of time.

Gov. Mark Sanford has promised to veto a cigarette tax increase that is not offset by equal tax cuts elsewhere, and it takes 31 votes in the Senate to override a gubernatorial veto - two more than supporters ever were able to muster for the bill.

It has been clearly documented that raising the tax on cigarettes prices kids out of the market. And if they can't afford to start when they're still adolescents, chances are excellent that by the time they can afford to, they'll have sense enough not to. Raise the cost of cigarettes 10 percent, and you reduce teen smoking by 7 percent; overall smoking drops by 4 percent. So if we raised our cigarette tax by 50 cents, more than 23,000 kids alive today who would have become smokers would not. More than 400 kids saved every year.

The life-saving effect is so dramatic and so certain that our state would be better off with a higher cigarette tax even if we burned the money.

Though the bill the House passed last year used the money to provide tax credits to small businesses that provide health insurance to their employees, representatives might be willing to go along with a Medicaid-only bill this year: The budget they passed last month included a smaller cigarette tax increase that directs nearly all the money to Medicaid.