Vote ‘yes’ on Proposition 29

If Proposition 29 is approved by California’s voters, the tax on cigarettes in the state will increase by $1 to $1.87 per pack. The additional tax revenue will be used to fund cancer research, smoking reduction programs and tobacco law enforcement. And that’s a good thing, whether the research is done in California or anywhere else.
Proposition 29 would generate about $735 million a year in new tax revenues, according to a 2012 report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. Prop 29 would require tax revenues be deposited into a special fund to finance research and research facilities focused on detecting, preventing, treating, and curing cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other tobacco-related diseases, and to finance prevention programs. It creates a nine-member committee charged with administering the fund.
And, according to a summary prepared by the State Attorney General, just 2 percent would be deposited into an account that would be used to pay the costs of administering the measure.
Study after study shows that the higher the cost of cigarettes results in fewer people who start smoking and more who quit.
And that’s a good deal for all Americans.
The bad deal for Americans is the way the tax is being increased. The last time a cigarette tax was on the California ballot was in 2006, when Proposition 86 was narrowly defeated. Proposition 86 would have imposed an additional tax of $2.60 per pack of cigarettes.
In the past 19 years, in budget crisis after budget crisis, the Legislature has not once raised the cigarette tax. And since 1959 they have raised it just two cents a pack. Increases have come via voter initiatives. It seems our legislators are so cowed by the tobacco lobby that they are politically incapable of raising this tax themselves, despite the hundreds of millions we pay them to do their jobs, this is one job they’ve repeatedly refused to undertake.
That leaves it up to us to do their job.