By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Nov. 13
The Kansas Health Policy Authority doesn”t like chewing tobacco any more than it does cigarettes.
The board voted Tuesday to propose increasing the state tax on all non-cigarette tobacco products.
The proposal would raise the state tax on smokeless tobacco, cigars and other tobacco products
to 57 percent of their average wholesale price. The tax is at 10 percent now.
At 57 percent, the tax on
all other
tobacco products would be proportionate to the increase the board has proposed for cigarette sales.
Currently, the state tax on a pack of cigarettes is 79 cents. The health policy authority had already
proposed raising the tax by 50 cents to $1.29 a pack, or about 57 percent of the wholesale price. The projected $78 million raised by the increase would underwrite much of the health reform plan the health policy authority presented Nov. 1 to legislators and the governor.
Raising the tax on
non-cigarette tobacco products to 57 percent of wholesale cost would generate an additional $27 million.
“That”s a conservative estimate,” said Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby.
The board voted to add the $27 million figure to its reform package.
“If we”re serious about health reform, we have to focus on health first and foremost,” said health policy authority Executive Director Marcia Nielsen. “That said, tobacco remains the number one cause of preventable death.”
Taxes and their effect on use
Increased tobacco taxes, Nielsen and others said, can reduce consumption, especially among young people.
Mary Jayne Hellebust, executive director of the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition, said that increased taxes on smokeless tobacco could help discourage use among boys.
According to the 2006 annual tobacco-use report distributed by KDHE, about 16,200 students or 17.4 percent of high school males in Kansas reported using smokeless tobacco. The national average is 13.1 percent.
“We know from experience that people who smoke and use smokeless tobacco start as kids before they are legally old enough to use this legal but deadly product,” Hellebust said.
Across the country, sales of tobacco products such as moist snuff and cigars are increasing, said Mary Szarmach, vice-president of trade marketing for Smoker Friendly International, a chain of tobacco stores based in Boulder, Colo.
“There are 45 million adults who smoke in the U.S.,” Szarmach said. “There are about six million moist snuff users. It”s a much smaller group. But only three or four years ago, that number was four million. It is growing whereas cigarette sales have declined.”
Increased tobacco taxes can encourage users to find other, less expensive sources, Szarmach said, including ordering over the Internet or buying at tax-free outlets on Native American Indian reservations.
“If it”s a huge increase, and we”ve seen states where the tax has doubled or tripled, tobacco users will go elsewhere,” she said. “It takes these regular, law-abiding citizens who are buying from brick-and-mortar conveniences stores and tobacco stores and gets them to think about other places they can buy tobacco tax-free or at a lower tax rate. Then the state doesn”t get any of the taxes, no matter if it”s at the old rate or the new.”
“Public relations war”
Though board members were unanimous in their support, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger warned that Oregon voted down a similar measure last week.
The tobacco lobby, she said, spent $12 million painting the issue as big government infringing on individual freedoms.
“This could become a public relations-media war,” Praeger said. She urged the health policy authority to form partnerships with groups like the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.
“We are not a lobbying entity,” Praeger said, referring to the health policy authority board. “We”ll need partners.”
Board member Joe Tilghman said that as a private citizen, he would jump at the chance to debate the tobacco industry lobbyists in front of the Legislature.
To which Nielsen replied: “Anytime you want to come to Topeka, Joe, I”ll lend you my boxing gloves.”
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128. KHI staff writer Sarah Green contributed to this story.