Supporters of tobacco-tax hike are not giving up

A bill raising the 69.5-cent-a-pack cigarette tax to $2 may be adrift in the legislative process, but that has only strengthened the resolve of anti-tobacco activists who are planning to spend Tuesday lobbying in favor of it on Capitol Hill.

The idea of a tax increase, which would apply to all forms of loose tobacco and cigars as well as packaged cigarettes, has solid backing among lawmakers and their constituents on health grounds. But a Senate committee tabled the proposal 10 days ago.

Despite the health and financial costs of tobacco, a Senate review committee balked at sending forward to full debate an idea that most agreed is an increase that is too deep, too targeted and simply not right during tough economic times.

That's no excuse, said a spokesman for a coalition of the American Cancer Society and a group of smoking-related cancer survivors organizing the effort, which will kick off with a rally on the Capitol steps, then move inside for some one-on-one with lawmakers.

They say they are trying to wake up the public that every nonsmoking Utahn is paying a piece of the medical care for people smoking themselves sick.

"We're simply asking smokers to shoulder their fair share of the burden for their personal choices that impact our society," Joel Kincart, vice president of the Salt Lake region of the American Cancer Society, said in announcing the rally.

If lawmakers want to be fair — and if the public really wants to do something — both need to recognize the annual $500-per-family hidden tax that all taxpayers shoulder to pay for cancer treatment and procedures given to people who are diseased from smoking, Kincart said.

Citing information already provided to lawmakers and using an argument senators didn't dispute but didn't buy earlier, the group says that smoking not only has a secondhand financial hazard to nonsmokers but that the measure will reduce the number of smokers, reduce health-care costs for everyone and provide a steady and reliable stream of revenue.

That last part doesn't add up for lawmakers, who say no revenue source is reliable these days, particularly one that is based on ultimately getting people to stop buying something.