Wisconsin legislators are sending smokers signals that they may have to pay more for a pack of cigarettes soon.

Rep. J.A. Hines (R-Oxford), Rep. Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Curt Gielow (R-Mequon) are sponsoring a bill that would raise the state's cigarette tax by one dollar per pack. The current cigarette tax in Wisconsin is 77 cents.

John Reinemann, an aid to Gielow, said the legislation is being drafted, and a date for its introduction has not been set. The extra revenue from the increased tax would be used to pay health care expenses that arise from smoking.

"It's an attempt to make the tax a little more proportional to the amount smoking costs the state," Reinemann said. "The reason we support this is we'd like to see cigarette tax pay some of the medical costs non-smokers are paying."

The higher tax would also provide an incentive for smokers to quit, he said.

But others argue that raising the cigarette tax will not stop people from smoking and will only hurt Wisconsin businesses.

Bob Bartlett, president of the Wisconsin Association of Convenience Stores, said people will not quit smoking because of higher taxes. Rather, they will simply find cheaper ways to obtain cigarettes at the expense of Wisconsin stores.

"A growing source of getting cigarette packs tax-free is the Internet," Bartlett said. "The higher our taxes get, the more it drives people to illegal means to purchase them or to purchase them across state borders."

State and federal taxes currently make up over 25 percent of the cost of cigarettes in Wisconsin, according to Bartlett. He said if the tax rises, it will comprise 40 percent of the cost and will drive people away from state stores.

"And of course, if a customer doesn't come in to buy their pack of smokes, they don't buy the other things they'd buy from the store either," he said.

Though convenience stores feel the tax would do more harm than good, a study found the majority of Wisconsin residents feel the tax would do more good than harm.

A poll conducted by the Wisconsin Hospital Association and the American Cancer Society in late January found 77 percent of those surveyed supported the dollar per pack increase.

Mary Kay Grasmick, vice president of communications with the Wisconsin Hospital Association, said the study included smokers. She said almost half of the smokers included in the survey supported the tax.

"Their reasoning was 'give me another reason to quit,'" she said. "They'll start spending their money on something else."

The Wisconsin Hospital Association fully supports increasing the cigarette tax and putting the revenue toward treating smoking-related illnesses, according to Grasmick.

Grasmick said 14 percent of Wisconsin Medicaid, which translates to $375 million each year, goes toward treating illnesses that result from smoking.

"The amount of money we'd save just on not paying for smoking-related illnesses is more than enough reason to raise the tax," she said.

But Bartlett said if the goal is truly to reduce smoking-related illnesses, the state should not be relying on smokers as a source of revenue.

"Don't we really want people to stop smoking?" Bartlett said. "Why would we base our expenditures on a shaky foundation when we really want smoking to go down?"

Smoking will decline if the tax is increased, according to Reinemann.

"I think everyone accepts people will be more reluctant to pay higher taxes for things they don't need," he said.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 5 2005.