The cigarette tax per pack ranks at 41 in the states with approximately 16 percent of the cost of a pack of cigarettes as a result of federal and state taxes on a package. It appears that Missouri is not getting a bargain. Other states such as California, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Florida have instituted Centers for Disease Control's Best Practices Comprehensive Tobacco Control and have seen a tremendous decrease among teenagers. This, over several years, would see a dramatic decrease in teenage smoking and, therefore, less need for long term care, pharmaceuticals, hospitalization, absenteeism from work, and low birth weights in later life. The direct and indirect cost to the state would correspondingly decrease and the quality of health would be better.
More women die of lung cancer attributable to cigarette smoking than to breast cancer.
Unfortunately, with approximately 19 days left in the general session before the General Assembly of Missouri adjourns, very little seems to be happening in regard to public health. Positive steps should and must be taken to ensure our children and teenagers make healthy and wise decisions in their healthcare, that we help their personal responsibility. An excise tax that would raise Missouri from 41st in the nation to 20th in the nation, from 17 cents a pack to 47 cents a pack, has not received a vote in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. This would go to the vote of the people and is projected that half of it would go for pharmaceutical benefit relief for low income elderly and the other half of the proceeds from the dedicated excise tax would go for a comprehensive tobacco control program. With only five weeks left, good health in Missouri may go up in smoke.