The researchers emphasized that the study measured only the immediate impact of the tax increase through May 2009, and the number of youth prevented from smoking and using smokeless tobacco would be much larger over time.

Click here to read full release from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids

Click here for full release

To read the full story, click here.

Why Support a Tobacco Tax Increase in Missouri?

Each year thousands of Missourians are diagnosed with tobacco-related cancer and some will lose their lives to this devastating disease.  This ballot measure will mean increased longevity, improved quality of life, and fewer Missourians who will needlessly suffer and die from tobacco-caused diseases. Evidence clearly shows that raising tobacco tax rates encourages tobacco users to quit or cut down and prevents kids from ever starting to smoke.

Raising the tobacco tax is one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking rates and other tobacco product use, and helps prevent our youth from ever starting. This ballot measure raises the tobacco tax and allocates a portion of the generated revenue to tobacco control and prevention. This will ultimately improve the health of all Missourians.

By increasing taxes on cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products, our state can:

1. save lives,
2. reduce health care costs, and
3. generate much-needed revenue to help fund the state’s tobacco control programs, elementary and secondary education, and higher education.

The Problem:

• Missouri has the lowest tobacco tax of any state in the country at 17 cents and has some of the highest smoking rates, lung cancer rates, and heart disease rates in the country.
• Tobacco use in the state costs an estimated $565 per household in public expenditures, and claims 9,500 lives per year in Missouri from cancer and other smoking-related diseases.
• Tobacco use accounts for at least 30 percent of all cancer deaths and 87 percent of lung cancer deaths.

The Facts

• Missouri currently has no general revenue funding for tobacco prevention.
• 8,600 Missouri kids (under 18) become new daily smokers each year
• Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined.
• Each year, annual health care costs in Missouri directly caused by smoking $2.13 billion and $532 million is spent on the state’s Medicaid program.
• Every household in Missouri pays $565 per year in their state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures.
• $2.51 billion in smoking-caused lost productivity

The Solution

Increasing tobacco excise taxes on cigarettes is one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce tobacco use among adults and to prevent youth from starting. Tobacco use is the most preventable cause of premature illness and death in the United States and Missouri.  In addition to saving lives and reducing current and future health care costs due to smoking, the tobacco measure would help Missouri’s workforce infrastructure by enhancing education funding for tomorrow’s workers.

The proposed tax increase will raise at least $283 million per year, according to the Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids.  Revenue from this tax increase would go towards tobacco use prevention and quit assistance programs (20 percent of funds), local public K-12 schools (50 percent of funds), and public colleges and universities statewide (30 percent of funds).  It is widely known that elementary & secondary education and higher education in this state are facing significant financial challenges and this ballot measure will help alleviate those challenges.  Additionally, it would help strengthen these public institutions and make sure that they are financially accessible to as many Missourians as possible.

For more information contact:

Misty Snodgrass, Legislative/Government Relations Director, American Cancer Society, misty.snodgrass@cancer.org

Missouri Health Department’s Gina Terlizzi said the graphic ads appear to be working. A record number of people are dialed into the state’s anti-smoking Quit-line during March. (Click here to read full story from KMOX-TV)

“The first two weeks of March versus the last two weeks of March we’ve seen almost a quadrupled number of calls coming.  From March 5 through the 11th, the first full week,  we had 110 calls, the second full week in March we had 106 calls, then the ad campaign kicked in and that third week in March we had  447 calls.”

Like you, I am against raising taxes in Missouri, particularly in a weak economy. But there is one exception whose time has come — Missouri’s cigarette tax.

The Missouri General Assembly should give Missourians a chance to vote on a moderate cigarette tax increase.

The current situation is well-known. (Click here to read full op/ed from Koster in the Kansas City Star)

“I think it is embarrassing we have the lower cigarette tax in the country,” McCaskill told reporters. “I would love to see us raise our cigarette tax and use that money for higher education.”

Democratic state lawmakers announced a proposal late last month that would raise the cigarette tax from 17 cents per pack, the lowest in the nation, to $1.095, nearly 40 cents lower than the national average. (Click here to read full article)

Missouri finished tied for second with Mississippi. It is the second consecutive year Missouri has placed second in the ANR Challenge. Alabama and California tied for first place, while Kentucky and Indiana tied for third.

There are now at least 507 cities and counties with strong local laws to ensure smokefree air in at least non-hospitality workplaces, restaurants, and bars. Ten years ago, there were less than 50. Thanks in large part to the success of local smokefree laws, many states now have strong smokefree laws as well. Check out a chart showing the dramatic increase in strong local smokefree ordinances over the years: http://no-smoke.org/pdf/current_smokefree_ordinances_by_year.pdf

The ballot measure, which proposed banning smoking in all indoor public places and in city-owned vehicles, received 1,653 yes votes (55.8 percent) to 1,309 no votes in Marion and Ralls County combined.

Proposition 1 was the most contentious of four questions on Tuesday’s ballot. The indoor smoking ban has been the subject of a heated debate since a deeply divided City Council placed it on the ballot last December. (Read full story in the Quincy Herald-Whig)