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The cig tax boost has reached one goal -- an increase in revenues for the state. Whether it has accomplished the second goal -- to deter more people from smoking -- may be harder to pin down.

Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of SmokeFree Wisconsin, points to increased calls to the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line since January as evidence it has worked to curb smoking. The line registered an unprecedented number of calls in January with 13,585. The number of calls fell considerably in February, to 2,101, but the more than 15,000 calls over the two months more than equal the traffic over the previous two years, Busalacchi said.

….Matt Hauser, president of the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores Association, said his retailers, especially those on the state border, have seen sales declines up to 30 percent.

"Our guess is 30 percent of adult smokers in Wisconsin didn't quit smoking in the last few months," Hauser says. "Those sales are likely going out of state or to the Internet. The state is not getting any revenue from those sales."

Brandon Scholz, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, said grocery stores aren't the best barometer of whether people are buying fewer smokes. Sales in grocery stores have been declining for years as a result of changes businesses have made to reduce theft and prevent sales to minors, he said.

But, he said, if sales have fallen since the tax hike, it could be because smokers are now buying cigs at tribal-owned shops, the Internet, or crossing the state border to flee the tax. [Emphases are mine.]

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance has called it all along.

There is little disagreement among economists that, all things being equal, higher taxes reduce cigarette demand. However… The author [of a new economics doctoral study] concludes that state-level cigarette taxation may be a poor policy instrument with which to decrease smoking and increase tax revenues. But he adds that such taxes could be a useful tool if smuggling were eradicated…

And the Internet. Imagine all of that.

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