To: Delaware House Revenue and Finance Committee Members
From: Bill Godshall, Executive Director, Smokefree Pennsylvania
RE: Please reject HB 138
As one who has successfully campaigned to reduce cigarette consumption since 1986 at local, state and federal levels, I strongly urge you to reject HB 138 because it threatens consumer and public health by imposing unwarranted punitive taxes (instead of protecting public health as Rep. Michael Barbieri falsely claims).
Cigarette smoking causes >99% of all tobacco attributable morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs, while the use of Other Tobacco Products (OTP) causes <1%. So there is no public health or fiscal justification for increasing the OTP tax rate from 15% to 30% of wholesale price, nor is there any justification for changing the definition of “tobacco product” to impose an outrageous 30% tax on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), which have helped several million cigarette smokers quit and/or sharply reduce cigarette consumption in the past several years.
Scientific and empirical evidence has consistently confirmed that smokeless tobacco products and e-cigarettes are >99% less hazardous than cigarettes. Smokers who switch to e-cigarettes and/or smokeless tobacco products reduce their mortality risks nearly as much as smokers who quit all tobacco/nicotine use. Several million smokers have already quit smoking and/or sharply reduced cigarette consumption by switching to e-cigarettes and/or smokeless tobacco.
The only way to further reduce tobacco disease and death is to continue reducing daily cigarette smoking and overall cigarette consumption.
Far from protecting public health, HB 138’s punitive 30% tax on these least hazardous tobacco/nicotine products would encourage some e-cigarette and smokeless tobacco consumers to switch back to far more hazardous cigarettes, while discouraging cigarette smokers in Delaware from switching to these exponentially less hazardous smokefree alternatives.
HB 138 also would unfairly tax cigars at 30% even though cigars are also significantly less hazardous than cigarettes (as most cigar smokers don’t inhale the smoke, and most don’t smoke daily). Besides, youth consume <1% of all tobacco products, and youth cigarette smoking has sharply declined since 1998.
Since many/most e-cigarettes and premium cigars are sold via the Internet, HB 138 would encourage many/most consumers at brick-and-mortar stores in Delaware to buy these products via the Internet to avoid paying the unwarranted 30% tax, which would generate significantly less revenue for Delaware than HB 138 sponsors anticipate.
The purpose for state lawsuits and increasing cigarette taxes was to hold smokers fiscally accountable for governmental expenditures to treat cigarette caused diseases and disabilities. Delaware’s $1.60/pack tax and MSA payments already reimburse the state for its expenditures to treat cigarette diseases and disabilities. If OTP were as hazardous and as costly for taxpayers as cigarettes, they should be taxed at a similar rate as cigarettes. But as previously delineated, OTP are far less hazardous than cigarettes and impose negligible (if any) costs upon Delaware taxpayers.
Once again, please reject HB 138.
Since I founded Smokefree Pennsylvania in 1990, we’ve advocated local, state and federal policies to reduce indoor tobacco smoke pollution, reduce tobacco marketing to youth, increase cigarette tax rates, hold cigarette companies accountable in civil courts, and in 2007 I convinced US Senator Mike Enzi to amend the FSPTCA to require graphic warnings on all cigarette packs, which is now in federal litigation.
Feel free to contact me anytime for more information or assistance.
Sincerely,
William T. Godshall, MPH
Executive Director
Smokefree Pennsylvania
1926 Monongahela Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412-351-5880
smokefree@compuserve.com
