Cigarette Tax Proposal Adds $1 a Pack

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One Georgia lawmaker is proposing a tax increase on cigarettes to help offset smoking-related health costs.  Supporters and opponents of the proposal have rallied at the state Capitol this week.    

Charlie Brown spends $80 a week on cigarettes.  After 40 years of lighting up and open heart surgery, he says nothing can make him stop.  "It's a bad habit but that's all I do."  But his 'bad habit' may soon cost more.

Lawmakers are debating raising the tax on cigarettes by a dollar to $1.37 a pack.  "They're already $5 a pack...I'm killing myself anyway.  Why would you charge us a dollar more to die?" said Krystal Dews.  Another smoker, Stephen Cotton, said he would "try to quit because I have three kids and it would be way too expensive for me to keep buying a pack of cigarettes every other day."

Other smokers like Willie Mullen has been trying to quit for years. "I know it's killing me, It's bad for my health and all.. It's the addiction."

The deadly addiction is the single most expensive, preventable cause for diseases and deaths according to health experts.  Smoking-related diseases cost Georgia more than $500 million a year for Medicaid patients alone.

Dr. David Harvey, Director of the North Central Health District, said, "If people are going to elect to have behaviors that are harmful to themselves and will cost the public, then it seems only logical they should help fund it."

The tax hike would bring the state an additional $354 million every year and it would qualify Georgia for another billion dollars in federal funding for healthcare.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Ron Stephens from Savannah said, "We cannot subsidize healthcare on the backs of your taxpayers, my constituents, anymore.  We have to do this this year."

Supporters of the bill are confidant the tax increase would keep Georgians -- particularly younger kids -- from picking up the habit, but it won't help long-time smokers kick it.

Smoker of 40 years Renee Nicks said, "You have to want to quit and I don't want to."

Georgia currently has one of the nation's lowest cigarette taxes.

The Ways and Means Committee is debating the tax increase in Atlanta.  If the bill passes through committee, it will go to the full House of Representatives for a vote in the next couple of weeks.  Stephens ays he has at least 75 lawmakers on his side and he needs 91 to pass.  Then it would have to go to the state Senate before becoming final.