Letter to the Editor:

The $1.50 cigarette tax increase is in jeopardy.

Chairman Tim Brown provided an amendment to the budget bill, HB1001 (cigarette tax increase), to increase the cigarette tax to $1 instead of $1.50 and fund Tobacco Prevention and Cessation at $7.5 million instead of $35 million.

We need you to contact our legislators now to tell them you support increasing the cigarette tax by $1.50 and restoring funding to tobacco prevention and cessation by $35 million.

If we raise the state’s cigarette tax to $1.00 instead of $1.50:

• 16,300 kids will become adult smokers
• 19,500 adult smokers won’t quit
• 10,300 people will die prematurely from smoking
• 4,500 moms and babies will be impacted by smoking-affected pregnancies and births over five years

These things will not happen with a $1 cigarette tax increase.

Though the state collects nearly $600 million in tobacco revenue (master settlement and tax), it spends only $5 million per year on tobacco prevention programs. Meanwhile, tobacco companies spend $285 million per year on marketing their products to Hoosiers. To combat this influence and to speed the decline of the state’s smoking rates, Indiana should increase its investment in tobacco prevention and cessation programs and restore funding to $35 million annually.

Please contact your legislators through this website.

Respectfully Submitted,
Dan Gray