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advocacy Indiana increases state tobacco tax On the last day of session, the State Senate and House of Representatives passed a 44 cent cigarette tax increase, which will help fund many important health initiatives in Indiana.
“It was about 10 minutes to twelve and we were still sweating bullets. It really did come down to the last minute.” ACS and its partners executed several statewide initiatives to build support for the tobacco tax increase. These included a statewide poll; press conferences; several letters to legislators; creation and distribution of fact sheets; meetings with hundreds of legislators; two call programs including an ACS call program that resulted in over 1,200 calls and emails to legislators; press releases; distribution of Letters to Editors; town hall meetings; multi-organizational action alerts; and much more. Patty is not a smoker, but she believes increasing the tobacco tax will benefit all Hoosiers, including those in her own family. “It’s not going to affect me personally, but I hope it helps my son to quit. He picked up some bad habits while he was in college,” she laughed. The state tobacco tax is now 99.5 cents. As a result of our efforts, Indiana’s tobacco tax went from the 37th highest in the nation to the 24th highest. Patty believes ACS’s hard work getting the bill passed will pay off. “Besides the correlation between higher tobacco taxes and lower smoking rates, the bill applies the money (generated from the tax increase) directly to health care. It’s going to make health care available to folks who may not have had any or access to screening previously. Ultimately, this may be the biggest benefit to fighting cancer in the long run.” In addition to the tobacco tax victory, the legislature also increased funding to the state tobacco prevention and cessation program. The program has been funded at $10.8 million annually, but through increased allocation in this budget and the cigarette tax increase, it will be funded for $16.2 million for the next two years. The Indiana Cancer Registry also received increased funding. It will be funded at $648,739 annually, which represents a $395,088 annual increase. For more information on how you can get involved in advocacy at your local or state level, visit www.acscan.org.
Pictured: Indianapolis Capitol Building | |
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