Doctors Seek $3-Per-Pack Excise Tax on Cigarettes

Attempting to speed a national decline in smoking and raise funds to combat smoking-linked disease, the California Medical Assn. on Tuesday called for legislation to establish a $3 excise tax on each pack of cigarettes.

Dr. Richard F. Corlin, outgoing president of the association, said revenue from the $3 tax would reflect the estimated cost of caring for medical problems caused by cigarette smoke. The Clinton Administration already is considering a $2-per-pack tax.

Corlin said a tax of about $3 per pack in many other industrialized countries has reduced smoking.

He said Proposition 99, a 1989 measure supported by the association, imposed a 25-cent-per-pack tax that resulted in a 12% reduction in state cigarette sales.

The California Medical Assn. House of Delegates, holding its annual session here this week, passed a resolution seeking the tax legislation, although the measure did not say whether it should be a national or state tax.

The resolution, approved by voice vote after scant debate, also declared that the estimated $120 billion that would be raised annually if the tax were imposed nationwide should be spent “for treatment of tobacco-related diseases, tobacco research, smoking cessation and educational programs.”

Corlin said he has met with Dr. Steven Gleason, an adviser to the Clinton Administration, to present a more detailed plan for a national tax increase and for dividing revenue between state and federal governments.

Corlin said Gleason seemed interested, but Corlin acknowledged that he expects strong opposition from the tobacco lobby.

No one from the Tobacco Institute in Washington, D.C., could be reached Tuesday to comment on the plan.

Corlin said he will testify in Sacramento today for an association-sponsored bill carried by Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Brentwood) that would ban smoking in all indoor public places and in enclosed work areas.