Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — The American Lung Association gave Kansas an F for tobacco prevention and a D for for its relatively low cigarette tax in a report card released today as part of the group's annual update on state tobacco control measures.

For the second year in a row, Kansas received an A for smoke-free air, following passage in 2010 of a statewide ban on indoor smoking in public spaces.

The report praised the federal government for its tobacco control policies last year, including adding new graphic warning labels to cigarette packages and advertisements and offering comprehensive cessation benefits to federal employees and their families.

"However, states, for the most part, failed to make any progress in the fight against tobacco use in 2011, and some even regressed," said the association's policy director, Thomas Carr.

Kansas tobacco control advocates said the report card showed that state policymakers here could do more to prevent tobacco use and encourage people to quit smoking.

Chris Masoner, the American Cancer Society's Kansas director of government policy, said raising tobacco tax rates would put the state more in line with the rest of the country. Kansas' cigarette tax is 79 cents per pack; the national average is $1.46.

But he said making that happen this legislative session would be a "tough stretch."

"The general mood up here is that if it's a tax, it's bad, no matter what," Masoner said. "We don't look at it as a tax; we look at it as a health measure. It is a tool available to the state to help control tobacco use, to help keep kids from ever starting tobacco use, and a way to help reduce costs to the state that are attributable to smoking, which are not insignificant."

Tobacco is the leading cause of premature and preventable death in the United States, killing 443,000 people annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking costs the U.S. economy nearly $200 billion every year in medical costs and lost productivity.

Kansas has not raised its tax since 2002. In 2010, then-Gov. Mark Parkinson supported raising the cigarette tax by 55 cents to $1.34 per pack, which was the national average then. But the Legislature left that tax alone while raising the general sales tax.

If the cigarette tax were raised by $1, it would add nearly $70 million to annual state revenue while reducing smoking and the financial impact on the health system caused by sick smokers, according to an estimate by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Other tobacco control policy priorities

Raising the cigarette tax was one of several policy priorities that Masoner outlined Wednesday at the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition's annual meeting in Topeka. Among the others were:

• Defending the smoking ban and working to remove its exemption for casinos.

• Equalizing the tax rate between cigarettes and all other tobacco products. Masoner said the tax rate on non-cigarette tobacco products is among the lowest in the nation. "What that does is create a disparity between a pack of cigarettes and a can of chew or those little cigars or the new products they're coming out with — they're much cheaper, so it's almost an incentive for people to try those products," he said.

• Working to raise the amount of money spent on tobacco prevention and cessation. Kansas spends about $1 million a year on prevention, using money from tobacco settlement payments. The recommended level for Kansas set by the CDC is $32 million.