"That's not an adult choice," Sargent said of youth addiction. "That's a middle school choice."
The best way for adults to influence that adolescent choice is to raise the price of tobacco, Sargent said. For every 10 percent increase in the price of tobacco, 7 percent fewer kids light up, he added.
Sargent is just one of many Montanans who have thrown their weight behind a general election ballot initiative seeking to raise the state tobacco tax 140 percent. The tax jump would make Montana's tobacco tax the third highest in the nation, behind only New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Currently, Montana's tax of 70 cent per pack of cigarettes places the state in the middle of the nation, where the median per-pack tax is 60 cents.
Under Initiative 149, cigarette taxes would jump $1 per pack, from 70 cents to $1.70 per pack. The tax on snuff would increase from 35 cents to 85 cents an ounce and taxes on other tobacco products would increase from 25 percent to 50 percent of wholesale price.
The overall price of tobacco would jump 25 percent.
"We're not increasing the price to raise revenue," Sargent said. "We're not doing this because we hate smokers. We're doing it to reduce youth smoking."
But the measure would raise a lot of money - in fiscal year 2005, it would raise $38 million for new health insurance and Medicaid initiatives, an additional $400,000 for state buildings and $6 million for the state's general fund.
Funding for state veterans' nursing homes, which has long come from tobacco tax revenue, would remain steady at
$2 million per year.
"I want to see kids quit smoking," Sargent said. "This is a pediatric-onset addiction that lasts a lifetime."
The $38 million raised by the initiative for health programs would provide more money to the state Children's Health Insurance Program, prescription drug assistance programs for seniors and low-income people, and it would help small businesses purchase health insurance for employees.
"There's a real opportunity here to address affordable prescription drugs for everyone," said Bob Bartholomew, state director for AARP Montana. "I think it's a step in the right direction."
Based on discussions lawmakers had in the 2003 legislative session, Bartholomew said they're interested in making prescription drugs more affordable. They just don't have the money.
"This will provide the necessary seed money to establish a program," Bartholomew said.
But opponents of the measure, which include tobacco companies and the state association of convenience stores, say the initiative threatens funding for the veterans' nursing homes despite a district judge's statement to the contrary.
Montana National Guard member Roger Hagan of Helena said the initiative would allow the Legislature, if it chooses, to divert funding from the veterans' homes into the new health programs suggested by the initiative.
"The language is disturbing," Hagan said. "It just puts us in an untenable position to have to compete."
But Helena District Judge Dorothy McCarter said the initiative is clear - it preserves the first $2 million of state tobacco tax revenues for the maintenance and operation of the nursing homes. McCarter made the determination as she rejected a suit opponents filed this summer, in which they asked the court to toss the initiative off the general election ballot for being "misleading."
In addition to the nursing home complaint, opponents say they have other problems with the initiative. Florida attorney Robert Shepherd, who was hired by the tobacco companies and other groups against the initiative, clarified their position to newspaper editors across the state last week.
"This whole thing is a bad idea," Shepherd said. "It's bad for government, it's bad for business and it's also bad for kids."
Shepherd said the tax would lead to cigarette smuggling from neighboring states, such as Wyoming, where the tobacco tax sits at 60 cents per pack. He said he's seen it all before when he worked as New York's tax commissioner.
He said smugglers travel to Virginia to purchase low-tax cigarettes and bring them back to New York, where premium cigarettes now run about $7 per pack, and sell them illegally on the street.
And he said such smuggling actually reduces the amount of tobacco tax revenue states realize, and forces law enforcement to spend more time dealing with the problem.
Shepherd said the initiative would also be bad for business, since tobacco sales represent 30 percent of convenience store business. And he said higher tobacco prices would be bad for children, claiming that smuggling takes tobacco sales out of regulated markets, where store clerks verify the purchaser's age.
"It actually makes cigarettes more available," Shepherd said.
I-149 needs a simple majority to pass Nov. 2. If it does, the tax will go into effect Jan. 1, 2005.
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