Why Doubling Wyoming Cigarette Taxes Wont Stop Smoking

Here we go again. Wyoming lawmakers have voted to raise cigarette state excise taxes from 60 cents a pack to $1.04.

HOLD ON! This was a committee vote. It still has to make it to the floor of the house and senate for debate. That won't happen until the next legislative session, February 2023.

The tax is proposed to discourage people from smoking, according to anti smoking groups in Wyoming.

But does making cigarettes more expensive actually discourage smoking?

Not really. 

In the video below Tex Williams sings about why he wants to MURDER the guy who invented the cigarette. 

Taxes and regulations of alcohol, tobacco and even drugs never stops people from doing it and it never prevents people from trying it in the fist place. It just moves the activity underground.

The city of New York will tell you that smoking is at an all time low because of their taxes and regulations, which are the highest in the nation.

Yet if want to buy tax free and regulation free cigarettes at the lowest cost in the nation, go to NYC. The underground economy is BOOMING!

Colorado found that keeping marijuana illegal was not stopping anyone from smoking pot. So they legalized it. But then they regulated and taxed it so much they sent pot smoking costumers right back to their underground dealers.

This is not the first time such a tax has been proposed.

When it has been proposed in the past it is either shot down or maybe there is a slight increase in the tax.

For those who want to discourage smoking, especially to prevent young people from starting in the first place, education is the key. Not taxes and regulation.

My parents were WWII generation. They grew up in a time when most people smoked cigarettes.

Today the percentage of smokers in America has dropped sharply from that time.

That did not happen due to taxation and regulation.

It happened because of education.

The anti smoking lobby has it's heart in the right place but their tactics of regulation and taxation never works.  They need to change their strategy.