Bid to Raise California Cigarette

Bid to raise California cigarette tax by $2 a pack submits signatures — A well-financed campaign backed by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, medical groups and organized labor said Monday that it collected more than 1 million signatures for a ballot measure to raise California’s cigarette tax by $2 a pack. AP article; San Francisco Chronicle article; LA Times article

It is a good idea to raise California’s cigarette tax by $2 because this will better the buyers’ life style. It also makes them want to quit easier and decrease the death caused by smoking in a wide percentage.

If California increases the cigarette tax by $2 a pack. The user will eventually slow down the packs of cigarette per day due to the cost. For example, if the total cost of a pack is 5$, but now is 2$ more due to the tax increase. The new total will be about 7$ and is about a 40% increase from the previous price. This means that a user will lose 1 pack of cigarette for every 2 packs that he buys. Furthermore, this will make the user feels like the price is too high and he will not want to buy it anymore. If this prolong, the user will decrease the amount of cigarettes per day and can even want to quit and live a longer and better life.

Cigarette tax increase will give the user a reason to quit because it is not a need; it’s a want. A person will survive if he does not have a cigarette, but he will not survive if there’s no food. If and when the user cannot afford cigarette anymore, he will find a way to quit like going to a drug free program or spend his money on more important things to survive.

Lastly, cigarette tax increase will help decrease the percent of people dying each year from smoking because people will not be able to afford it anymore. This will result in fewer usages of cigarette and will help reduce second hand smoke and keeps the people in California to live a longer life.