 "Photo: Photo Illustration by Ricardo Varela | Valley Star")
There is a petition being circulated to ban the sale of cigarettes in California. While the smoking of cigarettes is indeed unhealthy, the idea of banning cigarette sales is unworkable on many levels.
The state of California brings in approximately $450 million per year with an 87 cent per pack cigarette tax. This $450 million would be sorely missed under any circumstances, but especially given the current state of the California budget.
Instead, why not raise the state tax on cigarettes? There is a $1 dollar per pack increase in state cigarette sales proposed for the November 2010 ballot. The proposition, proposed by California law firm Olson Hagel, & Fishburn, would raise over $600 million more in tax dollars each year. As proposed, the additional revenue from the first state cigarette tax increase in over a decade would help fund education, health and cancer initiatives, and anti-youth smoking campaigns. Additionally, the $1 tax increase would make cigarettes less affordable to minors, resulting in up to a 13.7 percent drop in youth smoking, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
California has been a national leader in the fight for smoke-free public spaces, banning smoking in restaurants, bars, public parks, and recently even cars containing minors. Nearby Calabasas is said to have the toughest anti-smoking laws in the country, with smoking not allowed in almost any public space. There are undeniable reasons to restrict smoking.
Smoking is unhealthy. It pollutes the air, and it is addictive. But,banning the sale of cigarettes in the state of California, instead of creating a smoke-free state, would create a state of chaos, and a black market, much like it has in the state's prisons. The state of California banned cigarettes in prisons in 2005, but by 2007, packs of cigarettes were a fought-over commodity, going for up to $125 a pack, causing fights among inmates. If a black market environment can be created in heavily monitored prisons, how much harder will it be to control in a state of over 35 million individuals.
Rather than attempting to re-instate the failed ideas of prohibition, we should continue to allow Californians their vices and accept that, despite being unhealthy, allowing cigarette consumption would benefit us all.
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