Price children out of the cigarette market
THEIR VIEW

A lot has changed since the House voted a year ago to raise South Carolina's cigarette tax from the lowest in the nation to the eighth-lowest.

The state budget has gone from surplus to deficit, with most state agencies facing budget cuts. Public concern over access and affordability of medical care has shot up, as more and more families either lose insurance coverage or foresee the day when they will.

The changes make it more tempting than ever to focus on secondary issues as the Senate finally gets down to serious debate on the cigarette tax. So before things get too far off track, let's take a moment to step back and consider why lawmakers need to raise this tax. ...

The primary reason lawmakers need to increase our cigarette tax - the one reason that is reason enough by itself, without considering any of the many other benefits - is to price children out of the market, to keep them from taking that first puff that will lead to a lifetime of addiction to a killer drug. ....

Advocates project that raising South Carolina's cigarette tax to 57 cents - still just half the national average - will prevent 35,500 South Carolina kids who are alive today from becoming smokers; another 18,700 adults will quit or won't start smoking.

Some of the proposals for spending the $53 million that a 50-cent cigarette tax would generate are wiser than others. ...The cigarette tax increase, wildly popular among voters, only runs into trouble when lawmakers lose sight of that essential truth. So they must keep their eyes on it.

The (Columbia) State