$47.7 Million To Save $1

Posted: April 24, 2014 | tobacco | American Heart Foundation, American Lunch Association, ballot, big tobacco, California, California ballot, cancer research, Cancer Society, cigarettes, million, prop 29, smoking, tobacco | 0 Comments

Big tobacco spends $47.7 million to save a buck…kind of.

Prop 29 is a California ballot measure that aims to add $1 to the already existing cigarette tax of 87¢ per pack, bringing it to $1.87. The extra dollar is designed to go toward cancer research. The move is designed to have a two-pronged attack. First, raising the cost per pack will drive more people away from buying cigarettes or at least lower the rate at which they buy them. Secondly, the extra dollar can help work towards undoing some of the damage that smoking had created in the form of cancer, while indirectly reminding those who still buy packs of smokes that the extra $1 goes to researching diseased they are putting themselves at risk of contracting.

Until recently, Californians overwhelmingly supported the proposition, but big tobacco lashed out with their own campaign to fight prop 29 and they spent 3 times as much as the state to do it. Big tobacco invaded airwaves and TV sets with warnings that the extra tax money will only go to political spending and out-of-state expenditures and none would really go towards cancer research.

By inundating the media with their message just days before the vote, recent poles have shown the big tobacco is, in fact, making a dent on the numbers and the outcome will be a lot closer than anyone had originally anticipated.

If the proposition passes, the Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Foundation say the new tax would raise over $750 million for cancer research and stop 220,000 kids from picking up the habit. Activists estimate that big tobacco could lose around $1 billion per year in California alone if Prop 29 passes.