NC Smoking Ban?
Although we live on Tobacco Road, there’s no reason North Carolina cannot join the many sensible states that have gone smoke-free. My trip to New Orleans last week was pleasant in many ways, not least because the entire state last January adopted a ban on smoking in restaurants and other public places. If you check out www.smokefreeworld.com/usa.shtml and scroll down to North Carolina, the entry is suspiciously and depressingly blank. But visit www.smokefreenc.org/facts.htm to see some hopeful grass roots efforts. You can see the most recent NC legislative voting history on this subject here –www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2007&BillID=H259
And here is a group vigorously opposed to a smoking ban — www.freedomworks.org/blog/?p=632
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I thought I’d heard somewhere that NC had the lowest state tobacco tax rate, but this article has South Carolina at an incredible 7 cents a pack!:
Cigarette tax increase would fund insurance (Star News)
The bill was vetoed, of course, but it was an effort to get a federal tobacco tax increase from 39 cents to a dollar to fund the children’s healthcare coverage that’s been in the news so much. I was amazed at that number, 7 cents. That’s a deal! Look at NJ at 2.57 a pack *on top* of whatever federal taxes apply. Does that start to change the habit some, I wonder?
Interesting comment about the economics of such a proposal too:
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