When lifelong cigarette smokers Richard Rosas and Manny Mendoza on Friday confronted the reality of a new $2-a-pack tax – set to split their wallets on Saturday — they both said it seemed like the right time to finally quit.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” said Rosas, a 62-year-old San Jose construction worker on Friday afternoon, just after buying his regular $7 pack of Camel Crush cigarettes at Mary’s Market & Water near midtown San Jose.
Rosas knows how happy that “cold turkey” decision would make his wife and 10-year-old granddaughter, both of whom have asthma. Every chance the little girl gets, he said, she searches his car for the cigarettes he hides from her and — somewhat poetically — crushes them up in her fingers in front of him.
“It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for her,” he admitted sheepishly.
That’s exactly the kind of comments backers of Proposition 56, which California voters overwhelmingly passed in November, like to hear.
Until now, California had one of the lowest tobacco taxes in the country — 87 cents per pack. Now it has one of the highest — $2.87.
Proposition 56 did more than that: It also expanded the definition of “tobacco products” to include any type of device sold in combination with nicotine — e-cigarettes, e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs – according to the state Board of Equalization, which administers and collects state taxes. So they’ll all be heavily taxed too, beginning on July 1.
Expected to generate $1.4 billion in its first year, the additional tax will go mostly toward Medi-Cal, which provides health coverage for California’s poor and which backers say shoulders $3.5 billion a year for treating tobacco-related illnesses. The rest of the new tax will go to support cancer research and smoking-prevention programs.
Statistics from the California Department of Public Health show that about 3.1 million — or one out of nine California adults — smoke. Every year, an estimated 34,000 Californians die from smoking.
Opponents of Proposition 56 said during the campaign that with just 13 percent of the new tobacco tax money earmarked for anti-smoking efforts, the tax would mostly benefit insurers and other “wealthy special interests” on the backs of smokers, many of whom are poor.
Even Rosas was skeptical about where all the new tax revenue was really heading.
“I’m suspicious. What are they going to do with all that money?” he said, wryly pointing out that the tax that kicks in on April Fool’s Day.
That got a laugh out of Mendoza, 73, who upon further reflection wasn’t quite certain he could actually give up cigarettes. “Maybe I’m going to start chewing tobacco — or smoke cigars,” he quipped.
The reaction of other Bay Area residents to the cigarette tax hike bounced all over the place Friday — from dismay to anger to a sense of optimism.
Richmond resident Dana Shaw wasn’t happy, but she agreed that the added cost might make her kick the habit.
“It sucks,” Shaw said Friday at an Oakland bus stop. “They are already $5 to $6. They are $8.80 at my Safeway. Now they are going to cost up to $11. It’s a lot.”
At Monument Wines and Spirits in Concord, manager Joe Mulcahy said a few people have gone out of their way to stock up on their favorite brands before the tax kicks in.
“But I think there will be a lot of people who don’t know the tax is coming and will be surprised tomorrow,” Mulcahy said Friday.
Shervin Sayyah, who works at the store, noted that people often talk about quitting in the immediate weeks following a cigarette price increase or tax hike, but eventually they get used to it and cigarette sales don’t take much of a hit.
But this time, Sayyah added, the tax hike is so huge that it just might make an impact.
“It could be different,” she said.
Staff writers Annie Sciacca and Malaika Fraley also contributed to this article.
via NAIJA Society
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