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Charles Banas, a first-year student at Cooley Law School in Lansing,
said he's not worried about Michigan's higher cigarette
tax because his family in Pennsylvania mails him cartons of his favorite
cigarettes, Jacks.
"I ship them in," the 22-year-old said this week as he sat
at a downtown Lansing bar. "My price limit would be if I had to
get them from here. If it got to be more than that, I would quit.""You
cheap cigarettes online won't believe the number of people who have
stood at my counter and said, 'Well, I'll have to start driving to Ohio
or just order off the Internet,' " said Cecil Johnson, owner of
CJ's Smoke Shop, located between Ypsilanti and Milan about Ohio line.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm originally proposed the 75-cent increase to encourage
people to stop smoking and help fill a gap in the Medicaid budget left
by fewer federal dollars. The Democratic governor originally proposed
the increase for the fiscal year that begins cheap cigarettes
online Oct. 1, but suggested moving it up to July 1 to help
resolve a $250 million deficit in this year's budget.
The higher tax is expected to bring in $97.1 million for the current
fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The Granholm administration cheap
cigarettes online estimates it will bring in about $313 million
in additional revenue in the upcoming budget year.


The new tax will push the cost of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes - now
at about $4.33 - over $5. The tax on a carton of cigarettes, which includes
10 packs, will go from $12.50 to $20 on Thursday. A carton now costs
about $45.
On top of the state tax on tobacco products, there also is a 39-cent
federal tax and 20-cent state sales tax tacked on to a pack of cigarettes.
Mike James, a 20-year-old telecommunications student at Michigan State
University, said he might cheap cigarettes online have
to smoke less than the two or three packs he now smokes a week when
the higher tax takes effect.
"There's no way I can afford it," said the Jackson native,
sitting outside a coffee shop in East Lansing. "If it comes down
to paying rent and smoking, I won't buy cigarettes."
If smokers buy fewer cigarettes, stores won't need cheap cigarettes
online as much of the product and that could hurt local distributing
companies.


Michigan was one of 21 states to raise its tobacco tax two years ago,
according to Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst for the National Council
of State Legislatures. Last year, just 15 states increased cheap cigarettes
online their tobacco tax and fewer are expected
to do so this year, he said.W.J. Burgess, vice president and general
manager of cigarette distributor Hartland Distributing, said he expects
the higher tax will mean a hit of at least 15 percent to his business.
The last time the state increased the cigarette tax,
from 75 cents to $1.25 in August 2002, Burgess said the company lost
so much business it had to close its Monroe facility."There's still
some states raising cigarette taxes, but all and all we're probably
seeing less ... because of the degree to which they have raised their
taxes," Perez said.
Some Republican lawmakers cheap cigarettes online had
opposed the 75-cent tobacco tax increase, but the House and Senate gave
it final approval last week when Granholm appeared increasingly open
to signing GOP-backed bills aimed at improving the economy similar to
those she vetoed last month.