Landmark News Service

Although many see House Bill 443 as a way to decrease the number of smokers in Kentucky, others see it as an attempt to make a few fix a problem faced by all.
“They just keep taxing and taxing the smokers and it’s just not right,” said Charlie Casper, president of Hardec’s, a tobacco and candy wholesaler in Elizabethtown.

Smokers should not be expected to pay more taxes to reverse the state’s budget shortfall, which affects the entire state and thus should be addressed by everyone, Casper said.

HB 443, introduced by Rep. David Watkins, D-Henderson, calls for a 70-cent increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes. The increase would bring the tax to $1 per pack. The bill also proposes a 10 percent tax on tobacco products. It moved Feb. 4 to the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

Proponents believe the bill will reduce the number of smokers — and smoking-related illness and death — in Kentucky.

The American Lung Association gives Kentucky an F in smoke-free air, the amount of money spent on tobacco prevention and control. The cigarette tax, at 30 cents per pack, is well below the national average of $1.11. The state gets a D in youth access to tobacco products.

According to the American Lung Association, 28.6 percent of Kentucky’s adults smoke, as do 24.5 percent of high school students, 12.1 percent of middle school students and one in four pregnant women. Each year, 438,000 Americans and 8,000 Kentuckians die from tobacco-related diseases. Specifically, 80 out of 100,000 Kentuckians die from lung cancer, compared to 55 nationwide, according to the Kentucky Institute of Medicine.

Studies show that for every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, youth consumption drops by about 7 percent, according to the American Lung Association. HB 443 supporters see that as proof the bill needs to pass.

“Our state continues to have the worst tobacco addiction in the country,” said Mike Kuntz, American Lung Association’s director of advocacy. “Not surprisingly, that’s because our cigarettes are the cheapest.”

Kuntz said studies, including one by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, make it clear that the “single most effective thing to do is raise the price of cigarettes.”

The current campaign to raise the tax is different than when it was raised 27 cents to 30 cents in 2005, Kuntz said, because this time around, it’s not just the “health folks” who are involved. Kuntz said the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce is backing HB 443 because smoking is a business and economic development issue as well as a health concern. Treating ill smokers costs Kentuckians $1.5 billion a year, Kuntz said, and industries considering moving to Kentucky may be wary of encountering a sick work force.

The 71 percent of Kentucky residents who don’t smoke must pay for an addiction faced by the other 29 percent, Kuntz said. That’s one reason he thinks it is an illogical argument that smokers are being unfairly targeted in order to pad the state’s budget.

“I’m so tired of hearing we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the smokers,” he said.

From the American Lung Association’s standpoint, HB 443 is solely about health, he said, and that it would also raise money is simply a by-product.

Kuntz said there is talk in the House of raising the tax by 25 to 30 cents, which would have little impact on reducing smoking and would be motivated only by the need to help the budget.

“Those who are doing that are going about it in the wrong way and shame on them,” he said.

Getting the 70-cent increase passed is of utmost importance to Kentuckians’ health and well-being, Kuntz said.

“It’s costing us lives, literally.”

Casper — a former smoker who quit for health reasons — agrees that smoking-related illness is a problem, but he thinks education, not taxation, is the way to solve it. He cites the increase in the number of people who regularly wear seat belts, which used to be much lower, as evidence that an educational campaign can make a difference.

The cigarette tax is also a bad idea because “the government is too involved in our lives,” Casper said, and the negative effect on Kentucky’s businesses would diminish the benefit to the state budget.

After the cigarette tax was increased to 30 cents per pack in 2005, Hardec’s wholesale business decreased by 40 percent, Casper said. Business recovered only after Tennessee and Indiana raised their cigarette tax higher than Kentucky’s, which caused people to cross state lines into Kentucky to buy cigarettes.

Since smoking is largely regarded as an unhealthy habit, proposing an increase in cigarette taxes is a common reaction when the budget is bad, said Casper, past president of the Kentucky Candy and Tobacco Association, an organization of wholesalers.

“It’s a very politically correct tax,” he said.

Increasing the sales tax would be a fairer way to reverse Kentucky’s budget crisis, but that “won’t get anyone re-elected,” Casper said.

Gov. Steve Beshear is opposed to any tax increase, including one on cigarettes, said state Rep. David Floyd, R-Bardstown.

“Any proposed tax increase will get a chilly response in either chamber of the General Assembly,” Floyd said. “I don’t see how we would override the governor on this one.”

Floyd agrees with Casper that “we need to be careful to not burden one segment of society over another.”

“It’s easy to favor a tax on other people when it doesn’t affect us, but legislators need to look out for everyone and try to be as fair as possible,” Floyd said.

He said laws already exist to prohibit the sale of cigarettes to children, but they need to be enforced more effectively.

“We can give merchants additional tools for this, including driver’s licenses encoded with information such as birth dates,” he said.

Casper said he was in Frankfort last week and does not think the tax will pass.

“There’s no traction for it at the moment,” he said.

Stephanie Hornback can be reached at (502) 348-9003, Ext. 130 or shornback@kystandard.com.