War on Vaping an Effort to Prop Up Tobacco Taxes?
1st July 2016
I hope that all of the pro-marijuana ‘Let’s legalize it! Then we can tax it!’ people are paying attention.
I still think some Puritanism is at work—it bothers activists that smokers find vaping enjoyable, as opposed to arm patches, nasal sprays and ten-step programs. But some readers reminded me of an even bigger and more cynical reason for the state’s approach: officials are addicted to their cut of tobacco-related revenues. Smoking rates are declining. As smokers give up their bad habit, anti-smoking programs lose tax dollars.
Taking dollars from government agencies and government-addicted nonprofits makes them as grumpy as taking the last pack of cigarettes from a habitual smoker. Even though the state passed several new laws—raising the smoking age to 21 and regulating e-cigarettes like tobacco, for instance—anti-tobacco activists have qualified an initiative for the November ballot that would go even further. The “California Healthcare, Research and Prevention Tobacco Tax Act of 2016” is, as its name suggests, all about hiking tax rates.