Cost of smoking cigarettes as a tobacco product shaped as a dollar sign as a financial budgeting expense and costs to health as a 3D illustration.
The Bloomberg-funded Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) today released a statement calling on lawmakers to slug American consumers with a $1.50-per-pack cigarette tax hike.
Tax hikes are a bad idea at any time. This one would be especially bad now.
American families are still dealing with the fallout from Bidenflation. Food, rent, gas, and utilities all cost more, while paychecks have not kept pace. Now highly paid lobbyists want state governments to pile on yet another tax hike—aimed squarely at lower-income Americans.
Cigarette taxes are among the most regressive taxes governments impose. A $1.50-per-pack hike takes hundreds of dollars a year from people least able to afford it.
CFTK’s lobbyists claim that higher cigarette taxes will reduce smoking. The evidence shows otherwise. When these taxes are pushed too high, legal sales fall while illegal sales rise. Consumers look for cheaper options. Smuggling grows. Organized crime steps in. And smoking rates do not meaningfully fall.
This is not speculation. We have a clear warning from Australia.
Australia has some of the highest cigarette taxes in the world, with packs costing the equivalent of $50 or more. Smoking has not vanished. Instead, illicit tobacco has surged, controlled by criminal gangs. Firebombings, extortion, and violence have followed as illegal operators fight for market share.
That is what extreme cigarette taxation delivers: less control, more crime, and no public-health victory.
Even worse, while pushing higher cigarette taxes, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids actively opposes the one approach grounded in science that actually helps smokers quit.
Smoking kills because of smoke, not nicotine. Products that deliver nicotine without combustion dramatically reduce harm and help smokers switch away from cigarettes. Nicotine pouches, heat-not-burn products, and personal vapor devices have helped millions of adults quit smoking and save lives.
Yet CTFK routinely supports bans and heavy-handed restrictions on these safer alternatives, making it harder—not easier—for adults to quit smoking.
Supporters also claim this tax hike will raise revenue. In reality, taxes that drive consumers into illegal markets shrink the tax base while leaving taxpayers stuck with higher law-enforcement costs. Cigarette tax hikes routinely fall short of revenue projections and often leave states worse off.
At a time when families are already under financial pressure, hiking a highly regressive cigarette tax is the wrong move. It will reduce revenue, not raise it. It will hurt the most vulnerable, not help them. And it will do nothing to improve public health.
States should reject this proposal and, instead of repeating the failed policy of tax hikes, embrace evidence-based tobacco harm reduction that actually works.
