Perspectives vary widely on the $1-a-pack tax increase on cigarettes that goes into effect today, making projections about increases in state revenue and improved health of the citizenry hazy at best.

Some smokers say they’re sure of the tax’s effect.

“I’m going to quit because of it,” said Josh Braccidiferro of Middletown, a smoker for about 10 years. “I’m not spending $7 on a pack of cigarettes.”

People who sell cigarettes say a scrounging state government is rifling the pockets of blue-collar Nutmeggers.

“The government is just getting greedy,” said Renee Decker, a Middletown convenience store clerk and a nonsmoker. “It doesn’t cost any more to make a cigarette now than it did six or seven years ago. And they are going to make people quit — then where will they be?”

Anti-smoking activists say cigarette tax increases have been proven to raise revenue and also to cut the number of smokers, especially younger ones.

“More kids will quit smoking as a result of this tax, and more kids won’t start,” said Kevin O’Flaherty, director of advocacy for the Northeast region of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. “More adults will quit, and the state will end up saving hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term health care costs.”

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and top Democrats in the legislature agreed on the increase — up from $2 to $3 a pack — this summer, one of the largest tax hikes in Rell’s budget package. State officials estimate that the tax will raise an additional $99.3 million in the current fiscal year and $117.6 million the following year, Jeffrey Beckham, a spokesman for the state Office of Policy and Management, said Wednesday.

But in neighboring Rhode Island, where the cigarette tax is the highest in the nation, revenue has fallen shy of projections. That state raised the tax by $1 to $3.46 a pack in April, and lawmakers budgeted a revenue boost of $26.3 million for July and August. But the state actually reaped $23.5 million — about $3 million more than the same period in 2008, but still far short of the forecast.

John C. Simmons, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, told the Providence Journal-Bulletin recently that budget makers may have underestimated how much the tax hike would decrease cigarette consumption.

Smoke shop owners in Connecticut say residents here also will find ways to avoid the tax.

“It’s actually going to help our business because people are going to roll their own,” said Michael Tarnowicz, owner of Connecticut Valley Tobacconist in Enfield. “They can make three cartons of their own for one of Jodi Rell’s cartons.”

Mike Washo, owner of Carolina Tobacco in Manchester, says his business will suffer as more people order cigarettes from online distributors.

The Internet hosts many discount tobacco sellers. For example, North Carolina-based Americancigaretteshop.com offers a carton of Newports for $48.50, plus $1.75 for shipping. Today in Connecticut, a carton of the same cigarettes will cost about $84 at many retail stores.

Stores along the state’s perimeter used to benefit from Connecticut’s relatively low cigarette taxes, said Alan Schoenfeld, president of Manchester Tobacco & Candy Co. The border stores typically ordered 500 to 600 cartons a week from his Manchester-based distributing company, Schoenfeld said. Now, those store owners have told him they are likely to halve their orders, he said.

He also said the state will lose revenue from many cigarette customers from New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island who bought lottery tickets, gasoline and other items in Connecticut.

Sitting in his office with an ashtray half-full of Marlboro butts, Schoenfeld, a 67-year-old Hartford native who has been smoking since age 14, said state officials should have increased the sales tax, currently at 6 percent, instead of targeting one area of retail sales. Both he and his son, company vice president Michael Schoenfeld, said the cigarette tax adds a disproportionate burden to poor and working class people.

But if those people can’t afford to smoke, won’t they be healthier?

In response, Michael Schoenfeld asked: Is the state trying to raise money from a condemned habit?

Patel Shirish, owner of Sal’s Package store in Middletown, sells cigarettes at state minimum prices. Shirish had an article about the tax hike posted on his counter this week to remind customers it was coming. He said some people still will be surprised.

“For a couple of weeks, it will affect sales,” Shirish said, “but habit is habit, and they will come back.”