Not a smoker, but neither am I an anti smoking Nazi. Anyone with half a brain, knows that the famous tobacco settlement which promised billions of dollars to states, could not be funded by profits alone.
The number of smokers decreasing and the market share and profits of tobacco companies shrinking or at best stabilized, and even if that were not the case, what company in their right mind thinks it could sustain that kind of unprofitable theft for any length of time without screaming like a stuck pig or going under, or offshore.
I thought the whole case against the tobacco companies was simply piling on by attorneys general and sympathetic courts. It smelled of a railroad job and about as unconstitutional as anything I had seen. The only question was who is next in line for destruction.
Well, when tax revenue's shrink in a state, right away the lawmakers spit all over themselves telling us that people have quit smoking how wonderful!
WRONG! Smokers are going across the borders, and still ordering off the Net and/or rolling their own. It's the American Way to Shop Cheap, and when Maine raised the cigarette tax dollars up to $2.00 a PACK (mind boggling isn't it!) smokers are finding cheaper and better ways to buy cigarettes and not paying into the state coffers anymore.
Maine done shot the goose that laid their golden eggs. Now they have to live with it.
And you are right: Maine will have to target someone else to make up for this tremendous loss of money should this come true. And if Maine is truly using the tax money for what it was intended, it must be behind closed doors because we sure haven't heard about it. Outside of funding 5 race car teams and race tracks in Maine and giving the money to a little old lady in Ellsworth to build a garden in the center of town, and those tacky teenaged ads on TV, that's about all that is visible. Where is the rest of the money going?
Some have even called the Tobacco Help Line, and only get a recording. So now one is home there, either!