That's right, that's what Senate bill 1403 is proposing. Some in the Senate feel it's unfair that not all tobacco products are charged equally, even though cigarettes are responsible for 99% of the damage from tobacco products. What this legislation will really accomplish is take the wind out harm reduction and keep the status quo. Why would the government actually want its citizens to move to safer products? You can help.
This bill doubles the current Federal tax on cigarettes, raising the price more than a $1 a pack by the end of the year if it gets approved. It also wants to level the playing field by raising the tax on all other tobacco products so cigarettes are "competitive". Doesn't sound like a lot of concern for health. To give you some idea of how they are approaching this- Pipe tobacco tax from $2.8311 to $49.55. They want to close that loophole where people are using pipe tobacco to make cigarettes.
Smokeless tobacco taxes would rise from $1.51 to $26.79. Portion products such as snus, lozenge, tablet, pill, pouch, dissolvable strip, or other discrete single-use or single-dose units would raise by $.10 a dose.
Then comes the biggest kicker for most of us using E Cigarettes- " Other Tobacco Products- Any product not otherwise described under this section that has been determined to be a tobacco product by the Food and Drug Administration through its authorities under the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act shall be taxed at a level of tax equivalent to the tax rate for cigarettes on an estimated per use basis as determined by the Secretary.."
With the advertisement by vendors that a cartridge is equivalent to a pack or more of cigarettes, this could add a tax of $3-4 on a cartridge and who knows how much on a bottle of liquid.
There's a web site-
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s1403
It takes less than 5 minutes to register vote no to the legislation and make a comment. Your votes will be tabulated and your state Senators and legislature will get notified and the comment delivered. DO IT!
For more information, there is a thread in the legislative news section of ECF-
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...5-massive-smokeless-tobacco-tax-increase.html
