Cigarette Tax
Why a 93 Cent Increase?
Increasing the cigarette tax is the most effective way to reduce youth smoking. Ninety percent of smokers started as teens. In South Carolina, one in every five high-school aged youth is a current smoker. Twenty-one percent of middle school students who have ever tried smoking did so before age 11. Another 6,500 South Carolina children become addicted smokers every year.
The SCTC and its partner organizations advocate for an increase of 93 cents per pack, which would bring South Carolina’s cigarette tax to $1.00, just below the national average. The higher the cigarette tax, the more kids will be prevented from smoking. Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent.
A 93-cent increase will:
- Prevent 64,100 kids alive today from becoming smokers;
- will help 33,800 adult smokers quit; and
- will prevent 29,400 adults and kids from premature, smoking-caused deaths.
In addition the state would realize $1.4 billion in long-term health care savings, and the tax would generate $168.4 million in new revenue each year.
A 2006 poll found that 71 percent of South Carolina voters support a 93-cent per pack increase if the revenue is used for healthcare, particularly smoking prevention and cessation programs.
South Carolina can achieve even greater reductions in smoking, especially among youth, and even greater health and financial benefits by dedicating a portion of the new cigarette tax revenue to tobacco prevention. It is only right that South Carolina spend a portion of its tobacco revenue on programs to prevent kids from starting to smoke and to help smokers quit. An increased investment in tobacco prevention is good for health and good for the economy. In addition to saving lives by reducing smoking-caused heart disease, lung cancer and other diseases, studies show that the best programs have saved as much as $3 in smoking-caused health costs for every dollar spent on tobacco prevention.