Tobacco Tax

SACRAMENTO - Californians heading to the polls Tuesday will decide whether to tweak term limits for state lawmakers and raise cigarette taxes to fund cancer research - even as they try out a revamped primary system designed to reduce partisan gridlock here and in Washington. Under new primary rules, the top two finishers in races for state and federal offices will face off in November, regardless of party affiliation. The presidential contest is an exception. Candidates also are competing in new voting districts drawn by a citizens panel rather than the Legislature, which formerly engineered those districts to protect incumbents and maintain the influence of party bosses.

Cigarette sales have dropped 14% and state tobacco tax revenues have jumped 201% since California voters approved a tobacco tax hike more than a year ago, the American Lung Assn. announced. "Proposition 99 is doing exactly what the tobacco industry feared most," Steve Harmon, president of the American Lung Assn. of California, said in a prepared release. "It is leading to a significant reduction in smoking."

Raising taxes in California these days is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, in their effort to eliminate a $24-billion budget shortfall, the state's politicians are discussing dismantling California's main welfare program, eliminating the health insurance program for poor children and decimating education without any apparent debate on raising the income or sales tax. One of the few state taxes that politicians have talked about raising is the tobacco tax.

Philip Morris tobacco company paid a $125,000 penalty Tuesday for underreporting contributions to a campaign against a 1988 tobacco tax initiative, the fifth-largest fine ever levied by the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Ben Davidian, chairman of the election watchdog agency, said Philip Morris underestimated its late non-monetary contributions to the No on Proposition 99 campaign by $1.8 million. The tobacco company provided $2.

Re "Call tobacco tax a user fee," Column, May 7 I'm a nonsmoker who is generally in favor of anything that will reduce smoking and stick it to Big Tobacco, but I wonder if we are getting close to the point at which people who smoke - 12% of adults and 14% of high schoolers - can't or won't give it up no matter the price. Will we just be making life more miserable for the addicted while having little effect on the tobacco companies? After all, if their profits dip, they can just raise the price.

The Korean Youth & Community Center is offering a theater arts program designed to encourage Korean-American youths to learn about the performing arts--and discourage them from smoking. Funded by money from the tobacco tax initiative, Proposition 99, and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the free weekly workshops are targeted at Korean-Americans ages 13 to 18, but youths of other ethnic backgrounds are also welcome, said project coordinator Nancy Lee.

You did cigarette-smoking readers a great disservice in "New Tax Fires Ingenuity of State's Die-Hard Smokers" (Nov. 16), on attempts to avoid California's new tobacco tax. It's certainly true that going through shenanigans like getting cigarettes from other states or Mexico by mail or other means is highly cumbersome. It's also true that sale or possession for sale of untaxed cigarettes is a misdemeanor. However, you omitted to mention that possession of untaxed cigarettes in California, even for purposes of self-consumption, can violate state and federal criminal laws.