Cigarette sales up in state despite ban, tax increase
Legal cigarette sales in Washington are up, despite a tax increase and a ban on smoking in most public places, state revenue figures show.
In the first three months of the year, 52.5 million packs of legally taxed cigarettes were sold, slightly more than the 52.4 million packs sold in the first quarter of 2005, according to the state Revenue Department.
Figures for the nine months since the 60-cent-a-pack tax boost also increased compared to the corresponding months in 2004-05.
The tax increase boosted Washington's cigarette tax to more than $2 a pack, currently the third-highest in the country.
Voters followed that by adopting a tough ban on smoking in workplaces, bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, pool halls and most other public accommodations last fall.
Tobacco-industry officials said, and some state officials expected, that consumers would respond by purchasing cigarettes illegally over the Internet, across state lines or at Indian smoke shops, or by quitting smoking.
Instead, the trend indicates that the state is likely to collect $438.2 million in tobacco tax revenue, $35 million more than expected, for the first year of the tax increase. The figures may reflect tougher action against Internet sales and compacts with more Indian tribes that agree to collect cigarette taxes at about the same rate as off the reservations, said Mike Gowrylow, a spokesman for the Revenue Department.
"It's a 'we're still not sure what it means' kind of thing," Gowrylow said.
State Health Department officials say they have no evidence that more people are smoking after a long and steady decline, agency spokesman Tim Church said.
Annual surveys have shown the proportion of adults in the state who smoke declined to 19.2 percent in 2004 from 22.4 percent in 1999, lowering the state's national ranking from 20th to ninth, "so we're making good progress, and our progress has been ahead of national progress," Church said.
The state's next smoking survey is expected in about October.
