So for April Fools we're doing cat pictures all day, are we?

I'd say they were already pretty "fiscally irresponsible" even before this tax increase.

Sooooooo glad I don't smoke.

And all the Consumerist readers surely are smart enough to know that the habit is sillier than buying an extended warranty!

I've tried quitting several times and haven't been able to. These taxes are definitely hitting me where it hurts. I know most of society is programmed to hate us, but we're human beings, damn it!!

Where has my country gone...

When I was a teen, I paid 27 cents
for a pack of Camels.

... Glad I quit ~20 year ago.

Now if they would just start taxing fast food like cigarettes...

@IcarusRisen: Word

Have you been to New York lately? I encounter more secondhand smoke walking down the street due to the smoking ban than I did when I was actually IN a bar! If $8 a pack and a case of emphysema isn't a deterrent, then I doub't and extra dollar is going to matter too much. If anything, there will just be a flourishing black market (just go to Paris if you want to see how it works).

Every time I wanted to start smoking, and it's been often, the price has kept me away. So I guess the tax increase is working for someone.

The thing that cracks me up is the revenue from this tax hike is going to go help uninsured kids. This is all well and good but considering I don't know a single smoker who is not trying to quit right now, what happens when their 7 billion dollar/year windfall dries up to say, 3.5 billion? Where's the money going to come from to help those poor kids get health insurance?

I'll tell you where: they'll raise taxes somewhere else.

I am disgusted to call myself an American right now.

@IcarusRisen: Maybe they should use the cigarette tax revenue to help smokers kick the habit. My state does this but they don't offer discounts/free patches and such like others do.

simple solution for the unabashed nicotine addict, switch to Skoal (chewing tobacco). The price for a tin is hovering around $5 in NYC which is quite the bargain compared to a pack of smokes getting awfully close to that dreaded $10 mark

I'm as anti-smoking as the next guy, for various reasons, but this punitive taxing is unreasonable.

What's next? Cranking up the tax on soft drinks? The cookie tax?

First, they came for the smokers...

@IcarusRisen: I work for an insurance company now (in the marketing department), and in learning about the industry I've come across some interesting things from the mortality tables.

You may have heard about women like Christina Applegate, who have undergone double mastectomies even though cancer was only found in one breast. She did both because statistics show that she has something like a 3-times higher chance of getting cancer in the other breast than your average woman.

You, as a smoker, have a 27-times higher chance of getting lung cancer than I do.

@IcarusRisen: I don't think it's so much that society is "programmed to hate" smokers. It's more just that you're a convenient target for raising revenue because it's an optional tax that doesn't affect the majority. Same goes for the massive taxes on alcoholic beverages, though those probably affect more people (though I imagine not quite as regularly as smokers who need their fix every day).

We all pay for smoking. When my company laid off about a dozen people in January, 8 of them were smokers (not discriminating, just happened to be that their department had a lot of smokers). Since then our company health insurance premiums have gone down a lot, especially for people with dependents.

Oh, and smokers smell bad. The end.

I remember when my dad said, "When cigarettes go to 50 cents a pack, I'm gonna quit." And he did.
Now my husband has said with this new tax increase, he's going to quit. Hope so.

Glad I smoke a pipe. Nothing says sweet like the cool smoke of cherry cavendish.

It is relaxing and it smells better too.

Now I just need to get a pipe like Gandalf.

@darkrose: Who cares? If they actually get millions of people to stop smoking, the disposable income and medical expenses for smoking-related illnesses could insure every little poor kid in the country.

Yep. I heard about the tax a few weeks ago and am now wearing the patch. Ugh.

@darkrose: That is when they will raise the tax on cigarettes again. It won't be long before you cn either choose to buy a tank of gas or a carton of cigarettes.

Yeah... Almost 10 grand a year for a pack-a-day smoker in Ohio. You can be sure I'm quiting again.

The part that ticks me off? Any time governments want to raise some funding, they hike taxes on smoking. It's a safe bet because only 1 in 5 people smoke. So you're only ticking off 20% of the populace. You can also disguise it by saying "when we raise taxes more people quit" and pretending you're doing it for the good of people. You're not. You just want to build a new stadium, close a hole in your budget, or whatever.

Meanwhile, here in Ohio and around the nation, they are banning smoking in the very areas we are helping build.

@darkrose: All taxes are constantly in a state of flux as far as the revenue they raise. A tax on something like cigarettes has two conflicting goals: raising revenue and reducing use. It accomplishes both those things, but may reduce revenue if it's too effective at reducing use. They can then adjust it or whatever. It's not like it has to work forever.

Cool cats smoke Lucky Strike.

Just joking I quit smoking a while ago. It wasn't price because I live in Missouri with the 2nd lowest tobacco taxes in the Union. I just want... you know... not get lung cancer.

On the topic of taxing vices. People will just other places to get whatever they want to get a fix. Here on the MO/KS boarder smokers from Kansas always come here to get their stuff. Better to have moderate taxes on something that people will do anyway and get some tax revenue then send them elsewhere and get none.

@lonestarbl: I support that, it would surely make me think twice about that Quater Pounder if it was 6.74$

Just bum off your friends.

@lonestarbl: Yeah, and anything else you don't like but people are still technically free to do, right? Let's go after the Muslims next with a 400% tax on headscarves and beards. That'll show those terrorists!

@winshape: Next comes alcohol, red meat, and sugar. It's only a matter of time.

Sure, we'll be able to get prescription marijuana, but you'll have to pay a doctor for the script, and the marijuana will eventually have to be so regulated that only the major pharma companies will be allowed to produce it.

@winshape: If they're going to raise taxes, I kind of prefer taxes that are on optional things like smoking or drinking. It's not great, but it's better than a tax on something that people actually need. And I'm saying that as someone who regularly pays the high taxes on alcohol.

@darkrose: That's assuming that half the smokers in this country actually SUCCEED at quitting. It's been decades since people learned it was dangerous...I don't think there's going to be a sudden windfall of successful quitters.

And for everyone who does quit, there's some impressionable teenager taking his first drag.

Not to mention, by the (imaginary) time half of the smokers in this country, the hope is that our health care system will be revamped so that there are so many uninsured children in the first place.

@darkrose: Yeah, this is why you're disgusted. Silly, so silly.

Why smoke bs tobacco when there's ganja?

Been trying to get my father and mother to stop smoking for the last year and a half. Hopefully, this tax will make them stop cause I'm sick of coming into my house and smelling cigerette smoke. I'm also tried of how the smoke just sticks to my clothing and I have people on the street when I pass by for a light.

@dresden:

I am sure that only works for so long though. Unless, you are contstantly finding new friends. :)

@morganlh85: I am ashamed of you! In this financial crisis, we should all be smoking more; not less! First of all, consider the lost tax revenue that leaves our poor cites and towns strapped for cash and the extra burden to the fewer and fewer smokers left. Also, the manufacturers may go out of business if consumers stop buying them. Also, smoking helps relieve stress. Do I have to go on?

@Gene Gemperline: Every day is Cat picture day!

I'd like to hear a comment from Joe Camel on this...

@BytheSea: Why on earth would you want to start smoking? I am truly curious.

@WiglyWorm: Would you prefer that they raise taxes on something like food or something else that people actually need to live? I take your point, but it's optional to smoke, so you can always just quit buying them if you don't like the taxation.

@WiglyWorm: That would mean a single pack costs over $27. I think your math is off.

@winshape: Well, this punitive taxing is incredibly reasonable.

It's not so much taxation that it creates a black market but it still deters people from an undesirable and non-beneficial act that has adverse effects on people who are not doing the act. It also raises money that can help treate the consumers affected and reduce the incidence over time. Moreover, it is the preferred economic route for altering behavior. It is actually, incredibly sensible.

@lonestarbl: Let's keep adding more and more taxes (to help save our government, of course). That's because taxes are never cooerced and we all reep the benefits of more taxes.

@WiglyWorm: Aww, they are banning smoking?! Oh noes! I feel so, so, so sad for you that you can't give everyone else cancer with your second hand smoke! Cry!

@dwasifar: What's wrong with taxing scraggly beards?

@dresden:

You are the bane of smokers everywhere. The habitual smoke beggar. CubeRat is right. You will be constantly finding new friends.

Funny thing is once I switched to filterless Lucky's my smoker friends stopped asking. It was great to watch people who smoke lights puff and sputter on my unfiltered cancer sticks.

@dwasifar: I'd be fine with that if they taxes the Christian churches too.

@IcarusRisen: Keep smoking! Someone has to pay for the stimulus packages! ;-)

There will come a time (and this may be it) when the total tax revenue to the federal govt. and states actually DECREASES with increased tax rates.

Than they will have to run "enjoy smoking" campaigns to get the revenue up again.