Free Republic

Asking voters to slap a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes to fund cancer research seems like a cinch in health-crazy California, where lighting up already is banned in bars, public buildings and on many of its golden beaches. But the tobacco tax, pitched to voters under Proposition 29 in Tuesday's primary, teetered on the brink of defeat Wednesday just months after opinion polls showed widespread support. The measure was trailing by about 63,000 votes, although still-uncounted ballots could number as high as 1 million, by some estimates.

We were saddened last night as deadline approached and it seemed as if Proposition 29 was going to pass, adding yet another tax on Californians, even if it would fall directly only on those people who have yet to kick their cigarette habits. But as dutiful journalists on deadline, we were obliged to report the situation as it stood as we sent the paper to the presses. So, the newspaper you received on your porch included our editorial saying that to our dismay, Prop. 29 appeared to be passing. But . . .

A measure that would have increased state taxes on cigarettes by a dollar was narrowly defeated, the Secretary of State's office reported early Wednesday. Proposition 29, which would have raised $810 million a year for cancer research and smoking cessation programs, lost by just 1.6 percent of the votes, with almost 51 percent of voters saying no and just more than 49 percent voting yes. The measure would have made California - which currently has a lower tobacco tax than 32 other states - the state with the 16th-highest cigarette tax in the country.

The fate of California's controversial Proposition 29, a proposed tax on cigarettes, was still unclear early Wednesday. By 3 a.m. (6 a.m. ET), 98.6% of the precincts had reported. The vote tally stood at 49.2% in favor and 50.8% against the proposed law that would raise taxes on every pack of cigarettes by $1, yielding an estimated $735 million a year for the state, election officials said. About three-quarters of money raised would go to cancer research.

Here's a primary prediction: Despite being seriously outspent by big tobacco, the Proposition 29 people get a last-minute infusion of campaign cash and squeak out a win for their measure tacking another $1-per-pack tax onto cigarettes. No sooner does the new tax go into effect, my street contacts tell me, than Indian tribes will open tobacco shops at their casinos, where buyers can escape state taxes and buy cigarettes on the cheap.Just as quickly, smugglers will start rolling in truckloads of smokes from Nevada, Arizona and Oregon, as street dealers realize there is more money to be made selling hot...

Except for the different colored-license plates and the fact that smoking is still allowed in restaurants in Nevada, we would have never known the difference between the two states we drove through. The roads were just the same, the restaurants were just as overpriced, and the scenery was the same, and the ski slopes were just as incorrectly graded. Yet, the times when we drove from California into Nevada we drove from the highest-taxes state to one of the lowest-taxed states.

The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association wrote Proposition 29, the measure on the June 5 ballot to increase California's cigarette tax by $1 to $1.87 per pack. Lung Association President Jane Warner likes to emphasize the demarcation at play: She's with the good guys, while the bad guys, Big Tobacco, will spend buckets more money trying to fight the measure than her groups will spend trying to pass it. It's the virtuous underdogs versus the nefarious moneybags. Good versus evil. There's one unmistakable plus that comes with raising the tobacco tax: As Warner explained, "If...