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Cigarette Tax Boost Prods Some to Quit
Tonette Lancaster is getting free help from the District to quit smoking. The price of cigarettes was getting to be "like a bill," she said.
(By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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In Washington, the number of calls tripled in March, to 1,757, compared with February. The increases in Maryland and Virginia were more modest -- not quite doubling in March in both states.
Various forces are at play in addition to the tax increase.
Virginia recently enacted a law that will ban smoking in most restaurants starting in December. "That may be contributing to some of this," Phil Giaramita, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Health, said yesterday.
Maryland's health department ran 67 quit-smoking spots on two Baltimore television stations in early March, and "we did see a bump" in calls after that, said Sara Wolfe, the state's quit-line coordinator.
Washington also has an advertising campaign underway. A TV spot featuring former Redskin Darrell Green drove Tonette Lancaster to the 800 number.
But the price of cigarettes appears to be the main driver of the recent rise in people seeking help.
Philip Morris raised the price of some brands more than a month ago, and some experts believe it was an attempt by the company to get some profit out of the unavoidable price bump ahead.
"More so than people not being able to smoke indoors, I am now getting calls from people who say they just can no longer afford to smoke," said Dana Lefko, manager of mission services and advocacy at the American Lung Association's Maryland office.
Although the 62-cent increase is the steepest step-up in federal taxes, it is not the biggest tax increase ever.
New York City increased its local tobacco tax from 8 cents to $1.50 in July 2002, the biggest single jump by any U.S. jurisdiction. Last year, New York state increased its tax on cigarettes to $2.75 a pack.
In 2002, 21.5 percent of New Yorkers smoked -- a proportion that had not changed in a decade. In 2006, after the first tax increase and an ad campaign that graphically described the hazards of smoking, the smoking rate fell to 17.5 percent.
Yesterday afternoon, at a news kiosk near Central Park in Manhattan, a pack of Marlboros was a flat $10.
