As You Hike It

October 22, 2009

For those of us who don’t smoke, never have, and aren’t planning to start, it’s easy to ignore the plight of puffers.

Why should we care that smokers are banned from lighting up in government -- and most privately owned -- buildings? How are we hurt when tax hikes send the price of Marlboros, Newports, and Kools soaring?

But in the war against the demon weed, it’s time for liberty-loving nonsmokers to pick a side. Anti-smoking zealotry was once annoying -- occasionally, amusing. Now it’s just mean.

On October 1, Connecticut’s cigarette tax rose by 50 percent, from $2.00 to $3.00 per pack. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, only Rhode Island has a higher state-level tax on smokes.

But don’t expect the huge hike to help balance Connecticut’s deep-red books. For the last three fiscal years, the cigarette tax hasn’t met revenucrats’ projections. In 2007, the levy’s underperformance was a mere $375,000. In 2008, the gap rose to $16.3 million, and for fiscal 2009, it ballooned to $30.3 million.

Three consecutive shortfalls, even with the July 1, 2007 per-pack tax increase from $1.51 to $2.00? What’s going on?

Pricier cigarettes surely drove some smokers to quit. But determining how many is difficult. Data suggest that despite shrill PSAs, advertising censorship, onerous taxes, and decades of bulletproof medical research, about 20 to 25 percent of adult Americans (in Connecticut, it’s lower) refuse to relinquish their coffin nails.

As Alan Schoenfeld, the president of wholesaler Manchester Tobacco & Candy, recently told the New Haven Register: “People will not stop smoking. They’re going to get them other places.”

Those other places include low-tax states. It’s called “cross-border shopping.” A quick roadtrip to Massachusetts saves 49¢ a pack. Head to New Hampshire for a haul of ten cartons and the savings are $122 -- not including the break for the Granite State’s lack of a sales tax. Know an expat who fled Connecticut’s moribund economy for South Carolina? If he or she ships you ten cartons, you’ll save $293.

Fair warning: Avoid Connecticut’s cigarette tax (as well as the use tax applied to your smokes) and the Department of Revenue Services won’t be happy. The tax man devotes considerable resources to tracking down scofflaws.

Individuals who dare to buy from cyber-smokeshops are putting themselves in the most jeopardy. It’s illegal to ship cigarettes to any state resident. If the website you use isn’t aware of the law, and meets its federal obligation to report your purchase to the DRS, expect a bill for taxes and interest.

Entrepreneurial criminals haven’t missed the opportunity offered by the red states that refuse to smack smokers as harshly as Nanny States. “I know a guy” is nearly as common a method for obtaining cheap cigarettes as it is for scoring some “wacky tobacky.” Last year Phillip Awe, of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the Associated Press that his agency was stepping up its efforts to combat trafficking: “There are truckloads of cigarettes that are being transported across state lines right now, all for the sake of exploiting the difference in the tax rates.”

The Tax Foundation’s Patrick Fleenor notes the “blunt fact, which politicians of both political parties are determined to ignore …  that high cigarette taxes in New York have led to a bloody, decades-long smuggling epidemic.” A single tractor trailer stuffed with smokes can yield a crimelord $1 million.

Tobacco-hating fusspots have a predictable answer to the challenges of tax avoidance and smuggling: Enhance enforcement. (Getting tougher requires more unionized government employees, of course.) A better approach would be a recognition that certain people derive benefits from smoking. Many believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that nicotine sharpens the mind, suppresses appetite, and calms nerves. So they’re not going to kick the habit, well-documented health risks be damned. How are they any different than the more roly-poly members of the populace, who keep gobbling Ho Hos and Ding Dongs, well-documented health risks be damned?

In the 17th century, Ottoman sultan Murad IV put 25,000 of his subjects to death for their tobacco use. Sometimes, the ruler patrolled the streets, in plainclothes, and personally dispatched offenders.

Today’s extremists aren’t so crude. But neither are they content to stigmatize smoking, extort billions from tobacco companies, and peddle junk-science hooey about the dangers of secondhand smoke. Now they’re making cigarettes so absurdly expensive, otherwise law-abiding citizens are becoming tax cheats and customers for organized crime.

An anti-smoking busybody’s work is never done.

D. Dowd Muska is a writer, commentator and lecturer. His website is www.dowdmuska.com.

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