California cigarette tax narrowly leading. [View all]

[RandySF]

(06-05) 21:00 PDT San Francisco -- Tobacco companies poured nearly $47 million into defeating Proposition 29, a $1-a-pack tax hike on cigarettes, but the measure was narrowly leading in early returns Tuesday despite the hard-fought campaign.

The tax increase would raise $810 million a year for cancer research and smoking cessation programs, and it would give California - which currently has a lower tobacco tax than 32 other states - the 16th-highest cigarette tax in the nation.

It is the second time in six years that voters were asked to increase the state's current 87-cent-a-pack tax; in 2006, a similar hike was defeated at the ballot box.

The vote would be a huge win for the public health groups that sponsored the measure, including the American Cancer Society. They have repeatedly tried - and failed - to persuade lawmakers to raise the tax on tobacco products, said the group's California vice president, Jim Knox. Those groups raised about $11.2 million for the campaign.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/05/MNET1OO2HT.DTL#ixzz1wz2zAdV6