Proposition 99: Cigarette Tax Hike : Ads Against Tax Hike on Cigarettes Challenged

Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp said Wednesday that tobacco industry advertising suggesting that youth gangs would take to cigarette smuggling if voters approve Proposition 99, a cigarette tax increase, is “a scare tactic of the worst and baldest kind.”

Van de Kamp told a Burbank news conference that exhaustive checks with law-enforcement authorities in other states and federal officials by his Bureau of Organized Crime and Criminal Intelligence have shown that smuggling has become negligible in recent years even in states that have the highest cigarette taxes.

A 1978 federal law, the Contraband Cigarette Act, making smuggling of tax-free cigarettes a felony, drastically reduced such crime and there is no indication it would occur in any appreciable degree if California raises its cigarette taxes, the attorney general said.

Tobacco Industry’s Response

In Sacramento, a spokesman for the tobacco industry campaign, Jeff Raimundo, responded: “John Van de Kamp is wrong. He has a very political reason for wanting to be out front on a popular issue, but we have produced 22 pages of documentation of our points of the probability that crime would be produced” if Proposition 99 passes.

The industry, waging what it has said will be at least a $10-million campaign against Proposition 99, has been running ads for weeks on radio and television insisting that higher cigarette taxes “will create major crime in California” in the form of smuggling that will distract police from their usual duties.

Recently, a variation on this theme has appeared in a new ad that suggests how youth gang members can take up cigarette smuggling.

“How much more money could a street gang make if Proposition 99 passes?” the ad asks.

‘$13,000 Per Trip’

“For a trip out of state, a gang member driving a regular van could make over $13,000. Here’s how. A van can hold 4,000 cartons of cigarettes. And if Proposition 99 passes, each smuggled carton from out of state could avoid $3.30 in taxes. That’s over $13,000 per trip.

“That money could buy 32 pounds of marijuana, enough crack for 1,280 kids, or 185 handguns.”

Van de Kamp said Wednesday that the ad is “utter nonsense, fabricated by people who represent the tobacco industry.” Not only has smuggling dropped sharply, but there is no indication gang members would have the expertise to undertake such elaborate operations, he said.

The attorney general added that his deputies based their conclusions on discussions with law-enforcement authorities in New York, New Jersey, Washington and other high cigarette tax states, as well as agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

But tobacco industry spokesman Raimundo insisted that smuggling does continue and in the newest anti-Proposition 99 ad, “We wanted to be logical in our arguments, not inflammatory. We wanted to explain how it could happen.”

Last December, he said, a truckload with $750,000 worth of cigarettes was hijacked on the New Jersey Turnpike, and in June, 14 states set up a telephone hot line to combat cigarette smuggling.