ATLANTA — Some Georgia lawmakers have been trying for years without success to raise Georgia’s tax on cigarettes, but some think cuts at the federal level may finally stir interest in their cause.
State Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, said she’s been trying for five years to get the Republican-led Georgia House of Representatives interested in a study committee on the issue, and leadership finally relented.
The House Study Committee on the Costs and Effects of Smoking met for the first time Thursday. Members heard from smoking cessation advocates, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, American Lung Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
They learned that, yes, cigarettes are still extraordinarily harmful to health — and that raising the cigarette tax would both discourage smoking and help to pay for the health consequences for those who keep smoking.
There are at least 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, said Danna Thompson, a regional director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, and 69 of them are known to cause cancer.
Nine out of 10 lung cancer deaths are due to smoking, which also is known to cause obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and coronary heart disease, among others, she said.
“Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body,” Thompson said.
The lawmakers also learned about the financial impact for everyone, due to rising health care costs and reduced productivity at work when smokers get sick.
Experts said Georgia is spending hundreds of millions more on Medicaid for people sickened by smoking than it gets from the cigarette tax.
Only Missouri charges a lower tax than Georgia for a pack of 20 cigarettes, said Andrew Lord, a lobbyist for the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology. Georgia’s tax is 37 cents a pack, Lord said, adding that raising it to $1.37 would generate between $400 million and $500 million.
That still wouldn’t close the gap on medical costs, according to Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
The cigarette tax currently generates about $115 million a year, and Georgia is spending about $850 million a year on Medicaid costs attributable to smoking, he said.
Kanso added that Georgia has plenty of room to raise the tax. New York state has the highest tax, at $5.35 per pack.
Au, a medical doctor, is leading the charge for a tax increase, which is a dubious prospect in a legislature led by Republicans who generally oppose taxes.
However, she has some GOP allies. A handful of Republican senators signed a 2019 resolution encouraging the House, which writes the budget, to raise the cigarette tax to at least the national average to help offset indigent health care costs.
And Au has three Republican signatures on House Bill 83, introduced this year, to raise the tax to 57 cents per pack. She said in an interview that federal budget cuts may be undermining the traditional GOP opposition to tax hikes.
The easiest way to kill a bill is to ignore it, she said, so the approval of the study committee is a sign of receptiveness to her idea.
“The fact that they’re letting us talk about it … shows a level of investment and interest that we did not have before,” Au said.
Federal cuts are already having an impact.
The Georgia Department of Public Health confirmed that it eliminated its Tobacco Use Prevention Program last month due to federal cuts. However, a spokeswoman said “core” tobacco and vaping prevention and cessation programs, including the Tobacco-Free Schools and the Georgia Tobacco Quitline, were still operating.
Courtlandt Fouche, the former director of the program, said the loss of $2 million from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention far outweighs the $750,000 the state directed to the program from the national tobacco lawsuit settlement fund.
Fouche said he and his four managers were let go. One handled youth prevention, another cessation in general, another second-hand smoke exposure and the fourth program evaluations.
Their outreach to children, adults and local public health districts helped hundreds, even thousands, quit smoking, he said, adding, now, those relationships are “completely lost.”