Article

2013-03-01 Government

[Chicago Tribune] On the eve of a $1-per-pack Cook County cigarette tax increase, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle stood in the glow of X-rays showing damaged lungs, surrounded by some of Stroger Hospital's top pulmonary specialists as she discussed how smoking shortens people's lives.

The setting and talking points made clear the message Preckwinkle wanted to convey Thursday: This is a public health problem, one she plans to fight by giving smokers an incentive to quit and teens a reason not to start.

But the county's tax increase is more than just a campaign to protect people from emphysema and lung cancer. Preckwinkle is counting on $25.6 million this year from the move to help balance the budget. The history of cigarette tax increases suggests the county will be lucky to get that much in 2013 and should expect diminishing returns in the years ahead.

Smokes are a financial well that public officials have gone to repeatedly to shore up shaky finances at the local and state level. When the county tax increase takes effect Friday, a pack of cigarettes purchased in Chicago will come with $6.67 tacked on by the city, county and state. That's just behind New York City's nation-leading $6.86 in taxes per pack. It will also push the cost of a pack of cigarettes in Chicago to as much as $11.

Recent cigarette tax increases have had only a short-term benefit to the government bottom line. Some people quit, while others buy cigarettes online or outside the county or state.

When the county last raised the cigarette tax -- by $1 per pack in 2006 -- collections initially shot up by $46.5 million, hitting $203.7 million, county records show. But by 2009, the county collected $20.4 million less than it had in 2005.

Mayor Richard M. Daley bumped up the city of Chicago's share of the cigarette tax by 32 cents in 2005 and another 20 cents in 2006, to 68 cents per pack. He saw collections rise from $15.6 million in 2004 to $32.9 million in 2006, according to a city report. But city cigarette tax revenue fell to $28.4 million in 2007, and continued dropping to $18.7 million by 2011, records show.
(Disclaimer: I smoked like a leaky furnace for 45 years, cigarettes and later a pipe. And I enjoyed it. I quit when my Doc told me I had emphysema and the pulmonary lab proved it to me. That was 6 1/2 years ago.)

This is where it all started. Smoking has bad effects on your health. This is not a new discovery. When I was a little kid, back in the Upper Pleistocene, my grandmother used to take me to the zoo to get me out of my poor old mother's hair. I had to ask her about the meaning of one of the signs: "Please do not throw cancer sticks to the monkeys."

Back in those days everybody smoked. Rich folks used cigarette holders, tough guys smoked filterless Camels or Lucky Strikes, manly men smoked Marlboros or Winstons. Ladies smoked skinny Eves. Blacks, for some reason I've never fathomed, smoked Salems or Kools. As far as I know, people weren't dropping like flies from lung cancer, though I admit that the rate of deaths from lung cancer has gone down--according to published reports--since the smoking Nazis got their jackboot in the door.

But the death rate's beside the point. Did the government have any right to kill off the tobacco industry? If you concede that they did, then you have to concede that they do for all the subsequent campaigns against whatever some Puritan doesn't like or thinks is bad for you. Permissible blood alcohol levels have been lower, so you can be convicted of DUI after three drinks. You're too fat, so the government can tell you what not to put in your mouth. Nanny Bloomberg can tell the entire city of New York what they can have with a pizza delivery, and is looking closely at the very idea of pizza.

It comes back to that idea of free speech and defending to the death someone else's right to say something you don't agree with. Included among the penumbrae and emanations is the idea of being left the hell alone.

Not that many people smoke anymore. More and more taxes are heaped upon those who do, the idea being to tax the habit out of existence. The individual states have sued the tobacco companies and split that boodle among themselves, the money going to "treat smoking related disease." The combination of taxes, indoctrination, ostracization, and pictures of tarry lungs has reduced the smoking population dramatically. Who says social engineering doesn't work?

The people who're still smoking tend to be the people who can't afford to spend anywhere from $5 to $10 a pack for gaspers. So there goes the grocery money, or the money for shoes for the kids.

Posted by Fred 2013-03-01 11:26|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 If you concede that they did, then you have to concede that they do for all the subsequent campaigns against whatever some Puritan doesn't like or thinks is bad for you.

Like crippling taxes on ammo or requiring unbelievable amounts of liability insurance to own a gun.

Posted by Procopius2k 2013-03-01 12:25|| 2013-03-01 12:25|| Front Page Top

#2 Did the government have any right to kill off the tobacco industry?

Interesting question really. Does the government have the right to outlaw cocaine, heroin and marijuana? How about crystal meth? Oh, here's a new one: Oxycontin. Can you tell young men under the age of 21 they can't have a beer but they can fight, kill and die in places like Afghanistan? Where do you draw the line? My own personal opinion is this country is toast if we all start smoking pot. But then, if we as a nation decide to do that, it's a matter of personal choice that should not be denied to us, right?

As far as health consequences are concerned, I don't see much difference between tobacco, marijuana, heroin or cocaine. If you're going to outlaw one the logical thing to do would be to outlaw all of them. Tobacco just got kind of grandfathered in there is all.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-03-01 12:28|| 2013-03-01 12:28|| Front Page Top

#3 But don't you dare touch my whiskey.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-03-01 12:30|| 2013-03-01 12:30|| Front Page Top

#4 Dig deeper for legal smokes. Somehow I'm thinking there will be lower priced smokes available from a car trunk near you.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2013-03-01 13:12|| 2013-03-01 13:12|| Front Page Top

#5 Smoking rates are just under 20% now for our country, down from about 33% twenty years ago.

I'm a lung doc -- you can guess what I think of smoking.

Raise the tax to $20 a pack. You get less of what you tax.

Posted by Steve White 2013-03-01 13:43|| 2013-03-01 13:43|| Front Page Top

#6 Steve White

How very arrogant to decide what's in the best interests of your patients against their wishes. You're just an adviser to your customers, not their ruler. Don't forget your place.

It would be better to attach a healthcare voucher to ciggies. Buy smokes keep the voucher, buy insurance.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-03-01 14:00|| 2013-03-01 14:00|| Front Page Top

#7 As usual, higher taxes simply creates black markets. Death by smoking, death by drugs, death by alcohol, death by diet, etc. It's a zero sum game, one big pie chart. Move the divide from one casual factor simply expands another casual factor tagged as the culprit which results in more 'taxes' for more prevention programs.

Posted by Procopius2k 2013-03-01 14:09|| 2013-03-01 14:09|| Front Page Top

#8 BP, if you want to smoke, smoke -- I have a daughter to put through college.

Posted by Steve White 2013-03-01 14:10|| 2013-03-01 14:10|| Front Page Top

#9 Advice is better than coercion, and financially better for you too.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-03-01 15:03|| 2013-03-01 15:03|| Front Page Top

#10 60 years ago, not everybody smoked. It just seemed that way. It was very difficult to avoid cigarette smoke, and those who smoked lit up everywhere, even around gasoline pumps. "And I enjoyed it" - what other reason could there have been for smoking?
One real advantage for promoting cigarette use is to decrease the demographic that lives long enough to collect Social Security and Medicare. Dead men collect no entitlements.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-03-01 15:06|| 2013-03-01 15:06|| Front Page Top

#11 People in Indiana just ordered a shit-load of smokes...

Posted by Muggsy Mussolini1226 2013-03-01 15:13|| 2013-03-01 15:13|| Front Page Top

#12 All you gotta do is find an Indian reservation.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-03-01 15:39|| 2013-03-01 15:39|| Front Page Top

#13 Help! Were Being Repressed!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-03-01 16:12|| 2013-03-01 16:12|| Front Page Top

#14 what other reason could there have been for smoking?

A cigarette is the world's best delivery system for nicotine. Nicotine hits the brain faster and with more sustained effect via inhalation than via gum or patch.

Posted by Steve White 2013-03-01 16:55|| 2013-03-01 16:55|| Front Page Top

#15 Grom: thanks for that laugh. I could use it today!

Posted by Steve White 2013-03-01 16:59|| 2013-03-01 16:59|| Front Page Top

#16 A cigarette is the world's best delivery system for nicotine. Nicotine hits the brain faster and with more sustained effect via inhalation than via gum or patch.
A scientific description of the term "And I enjoyed it" 8-)

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-03-01 17:09|| 2013-03-01 17:09|| Front Page Top

#17 A county taxing through the nose for cigarettes will get little tax revenue. It is not that far to get cheaper smokes by a bit of a drive or internet.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2013-03-01 17:24|| 2013-03-01 17:24|| Front Page Top

#18 I miss it.
I can say no more.
It was fun while it lasted.

Posted by Shipman 2013-03-01 18:24|| 2013-03-01 18:24|| Front Page Top

#19 The only reason government cares about smoking is they decided to pay for your health care. Why should they care? They do not care about children dying from abortion, poor behavior that leads to aids, and many other poor decisions that lead to hospital stays. Tax the hell out of sports equipment, mountain climbing gear, stripper poles...... it is a slippery slope we are sliding on.

Posted by airandee 2013-03-01 19:22|| 2013-03-01 19:22|| Front Page Top

#20 Steve: I agree with your assessment completely. Much of the reason isn't actual health-risks, it's the social and financial costs that have reduced smoking to the level it is now. Another 5 years and Smokers will be worth less than a crack-addicted hooker in societies eyes.

Posted by Charles 2013-03-01 19:35|| 2013-03-01 19:35|| Front Page Top

#21 "Another 5 years and Smokers will be worth less than a crack-addicted hooker in societies eyes."

Gawd, I hope not, Charles.

I've got tobacco stock in my retirement account.

No, I never smoked. Couldn't figure out why anyone did, and couldn't figure out how they afforded it. Still can't.

Posted by Barbara 2013-03-01 20:04|| 2013-03-01 20:04|| Front Page Top

#22 Bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, fresh pack of Marlboro Reds and a clean ash tray. The Best. Left it behind ten years ago. Still have that urge.

Posted by Secret Asian Man 2013-03-01 21:13|| 2013-03-01 21:13|| Front Page Top

#23 Lots of hand-wringing and oh-noes over the evils of smoking, but if everyone stopped the states would be out 17 billion in tax revenue.

tax revenue by state slightly old, but you get the picture.

Posted by SteveS 2013-03-01 23:27|| 2013-03-01 23:27|| Front Page Top

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