As President I will stop one of the biggest wastes and frauds ever perpetrated on the American people – the trillion dollar war on drugs. While falsely promising us a safer, more sober society, the war on drugs is bankrupting our state and local coffers and costs the Federal government $15 billion dollars per year. That’s five hundred dollars every second – mostly for possession of marijuana, a relatively harmless drug the effects of which are certainly no worse than alcohol, the sale of which is legal and regulated.

Think how many tax cuts we could have with the money we are spending. If you’re a Republican – think how many tax cuts (federal, state and local) could be bought with the money you’re spending to lock people up for something as dangerous as drinking. Think how many poor people could be helped with that money. We need to reform our drug laws as soon as yesterday by stopping the prohibition of marijuana and regulating its sale.

If you think the drug war makes you and your children safer, think again. The International Center for Science in Drug Policy stated: “Drug prohibition likely contributes to drug market violence and higher homicide rates.” But you don’t need to be a scientist, or the governor of a border state, to understand why: the drug war creates violent criminals.

Criminals deal drugs because drugs make them money, a lot of money. When that kind of money is in play, people kill for it. Entire armies of crime have built up on our streets and across the border in Mexico. But we can stop that tomorrow – with drug policy reform. We know that prohibition makes prices higher. Our own history with prohibition proves that. When we make something illegal, we keep the supply artificially low, and that keeps the price artificially high – and that means violence.

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The Empire State is struggling to bring in additional tax revenue it projected it would gain from efforts to stop smokers from buying untaxed  cigarettes on Indian Reservations, reports the New York Post:

The state’s tax collectors were recently calling around to convenience-store owners, wondering what was up. The $130 million in extra tax that Albany was expecting from a change in the law about cigarette sales on Indian reservations wasn’t happening.

A memo sent to members of the New York Association of Convenience Stores from the group’s president, Jim Calvin — a copy of which I have on my desk — said, “I got a call from Gov. Cuomo’s budget office yesterday. In examining cigarette tax receipts so far this fiscal year (April 1 to March 31) it looks like they will fall considerably short of their projection in new revenues. . . .”

The state had hoped to get the extra dough by enforcing a new law that made it illegal for licensed cigarette wholesalers in the state to sell untaxed name-brand cigarettes like Newport and Marlboro to Indian reservations.

Why the need for the extra measures focused on Indian Reservation sales in the first place?

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Earlier this month, news broke that a group calling itself the “Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative” is pushing a $1 per pack cigarette tax hike in the state. Via the AP:

A Maryland health group is planning to push for a $1 increase in the state’s tobacco tax.

The Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative says it will launch the campaign next week in an effort to build public support for increasing the tax to pay for public health needs.

[...]

Maryland last raised its tobacco tax from $1 a pack to $2 a pack during a special session in 2007.

Those who follow consumption tax policy will know that state cigarette tax increases have historically constituted a somewhat unreliable revenue stream.

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The US Food and Drug Administration recently unveiled nine graphic warning labels that will appear on US cigarette packs in 2012. Some of the more gruesome labels include images of diseased lungs and tracheotomy holes. According to the FDA, these labels are “the most significant advancement in communicating the dangers of smoking and the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years.”

Will the graphic labels reduce smoking? Do Americans really need to be reminded that smoking isn’t good for them?

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As states around the country continue to face ongoing projected budget deficits, many elected officials are advocating consumption tax hikes in an effort to close budget holes (see Dayton, Mark and Democrats, Minnesota).  However, New Hampshire recently cut its cigarette tax in a move to increase revenue and now Michigan—the state generally regarded as having the worst economy in the country—may follow suit.

Senate Bill 517 would roll back the $2 per pack cigarette excise tax, among the highest in the nation, and reset it at $1 per pack.  It would be partnered with budget cuts including an option that would tighten up Medicaid restrictions, loosened by the previous Democratic administration.

As with New Hampshire, experts believe the move could enable Michigan to become more competitive vis a vis neighboring states with higher cigarette taxes, encouraging consumers to purchase their cigarettes within the state rather than elsewhere.  In addition, the move could reduce the attractiveness of smuggled cigarettes illegally sold without tax being levied.  Studies by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy have estimated that nearly 35 percent of all cigarettes consumed within the state were purchased outside its borders, in Indiana, Ohio and even Kentucky. The estimated tax-induced smuggling in Michigan, which increased steadily as the taxes on cigarettes also increased, was a hefty 16 percent, the fifth highest in the nation.

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This Friday, Vermont’s cigarette tax goes up by 38 cents to $2.62 a pack, a move that backers hope will bring in an additional $4 million a year in revenue.

But there might be some bad news in store for residents of the Green Mountain State hoping the hike would help boost state coffers.  Just as Vermont’s tax is set to go up, its neighbor, Live-Free-Or-Die New Hampshire is cutting its cigarette tax by 10 cents a pack.

The dual moves could prove a boon for New Hampshire businesses, which already do a steady trade in selling goods taxed heavily by other states to residents of neighboring states who drive across the border to stock up.  Now, Vermonters may have an added reason to do so, and New Hampshire grocery and convenience stores hope to clean up.

Via NH Journal:

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Recently the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned “flavored” cigarettes, preventing the sale of clove and (the hitherto unknown) “chocolate” cigarettes. These “candy flavored” smokes hook teenagers by masking, according to one anti-smoking activist, “the taste of the poison.” And earlier this year, the FDA prevented the branding of cigarettes as “light” or “medium,” instead forcing manufacturers to rechristen them with innocuous names like “Marlboro Gold” and “Marlboro Blue.”

At the end of September, the FDA will announce the formation of a Menthol Subcommittee, which will review the available scientific literature on the health effects of menthol cigarettes. But are menthol cigarettes any worse for smokers than “non-flavored” cigarettes? Are they harder to quit, as anti-smoking activists suggest? Or is the government campaign against menthol simply another step on the road to the complete abolition of cigarettes?

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During the campaign in 2008, President Obama made his tax message as clear as it could be: he wanted to tax the wealthy, and help the poor. He promised over and over that taxes on those making less than $250,000 would not go up. So why has the president proposed a health care tax on the poor?

A frequent line by candidate Obama in his stump speeches during the election went something like this:

“Let me be absolutely clear. If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up.”

Despite this promise, we’ve already had the federal tax hike on cigarettes to fund children’s health care (S-CHIP), an excise tax that impacts the poor profoundly more than the wealthy because of the inverse relationship between smoking and income.

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