By one estimate, the increase in federal cigarette taxes due to take effect in April and a proposed 75 cent per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax will lead 45,000 youth and adults to quit smoking or never start.

A proposed statewide ban on lighting up in bars and restaurants and near outside entrances to buildings could further reduce smoking.

Yet as Gov. Jim Doyle proposes to raise $291 million more in taxes on smokers and tobacco users over the next two years, he is proposing to cut state help to programs that help smokers kick the habit by $1.8 million — on top of $2 million in cuts already being made this year.

Former two-pack-a-day smoker Nancy Marcus said programs such as the state’s Tobacco Quit Line helped free her from smoking and she doesn’t want to see them cut.

"I was a slave to this substance that was killing me and I hated it," said Marcus, who quit nearly two years ago. "The Quit Line really, really helped a lot."

Republicans have criticized the proposed 75 cent per pack increase in the state cigarette tax as "social engineering" and some public health researchers have also questioned whether such taxes weigh too heavily on poor smokers. The proposed increase would follow a state increase of $1 per pack in January 2008 and a federal increase of 61 cents that takes effect April 1.

"It’s just a cash grab," Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said. "It’s just another way of boosting that revenue one more time before they see it dwindle" from smokers kicking the habit or buying cigarettes over the Internet to avoid state taxes.

But Doyle said he wants nothing more than to see smokers quit and the state’s revenue from cigarette taxes fall.

"We made real progress with the increase in the tax (last year) but now it’s time to give this really a jolt and that 75 cents is a real jolt, together with the ban," Doyle said. "I’m not saying we’re going to deliver the ultimate knockout blow to cigarettes but I think we will see the sharpest reduction yet."

After the last $1 increase, calls to the Tobacco Quit Line nearly tripled in 2008.

A decrease in smoking could help hold down health-care costs both for Wisconsin businesses and for the state budget. In 2004, the state paid an estimated $480 million a year in smoking-related costs in its Medicaid health programs for the poor, according to a Centers for Disease Control study.

In just the next two years, the statewide smoking ban proposed by Doyle could save the state $1.2 million in Medicaid costs, administration officials estimate. That’s because Medicaid recipients will have fewer health problems such as heart attacks or respiratory disease if they stop or reduce smoking or are exposed to less secondhand smoke, said Stephanie Smiley of the Department of Health Services.

But the tax increases and other measures won’t win any praise from Madison resident Sarah Steffes, 22, who’s been smoking for six years. Steffes, who "hates the taxes," is looking at rolling her own cigarettes to hold down costs.

As for the smoking ban, Scott Stenger, a lobbyist for the Tavern League of Wisconsin, said it would hit small-time bar owners at a time when many are already struggling because of the tough economy.

"Our objective now is to get it out of the budget," Stenger said, adding the Tavern League wouldn’t negotiate on any compromise until the smoking ban came out of the bill.

Marcus, the former smoker, sees a value in the proposals. Marcus, now 36, started smoking when she was 15 and in later life refrained from going to concerts and movies because it meant two hours without lighting up.

After dozens of attempts, Marcus stopped smoking in March 2007 with the help of the Quit Line, which provides encouragement and resources to smokers seeking to end their addiction. Increases in the state tobacco tax and Madison’s ban on smoking in bars also helped by reducing her temptation to go back to cigarettes, she said.

Lois Smith, of Rio, was so addicted to cigarettes she would wake up at night to have a smoke. Smith, 73, who also broke her habit years ago with Quit Line help, now supports the proposed state smoking ban and has worked to try to get her apartment building smoke free.

Projections done for the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention suggest that some 24,000 children and youth would not start smoking if both the federal and proposed state increases become law, along with 21,000 adult smokers who would quit. Altogether, some 12,400 smoking-related deaths would be avoided if both tax increases tax effect, according to the estimates.

But Doyle’s budget also cuts funding for state anti-tobacco grants by $1.8 million over two years to $28.7 million, a decrease of 5.9 percent that Smiley said would not prevent the state from continuing to reduce smoking. Those proposed cuts come on top of a one-time transfer of $2 million from the grants program this year to help solve the state’s budget troubles.

Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of SmokeFree Wisconsin, said in addition to the Quit Line those grants help pay for things such as efforts to keep youth from smoking, outreach to pregnant women and anti-tobacco advertising — all of which might "get nicked" as a result of the cuts.

"It does make it harder to take advantage of this opportunity and really exploit it to help smokers quit," Busalacchi said of the proposed cuts.

In a January letter to the American Journal of Public Health, UW-Madison researcher David Ahrens said states around the country are taxing poorer smokers — who are more likely to be unable to kick the habit — and offering them very little help in return to overcome their addiction.

"We must recognize the extent to which the result of highly priced tobacco products further impoverish a substantial portion of low-income tobacco users," Ahrens wrote.

Eric Schutt, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Society, said the real point was that Doyle’s budget would ultimately succeed in reducing smoking.

"When you take the budget as a whole, it’s an incredible budget for folks who are on the side of anti-tobacco efforts," he said.

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Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposed budget would:

• Raise the state cigarette tax from $1.77 to $2.52 per pack starting on Sept. 1.
• Raise the tax on moist snuff by 56 cents to $1.87 per ounce.
• Raise the tax on other tobacco products to 71 percent of the manufacturer’s price, an increase of nearly 21 percentage points. Altogether, those three moves would increase taxes on tobacco users by $291 million over two years.
• Enact a broad smoking ban that would prohibit smoking in workplaces including bars but not preempt local smoking bans that may have tougher provisions in place.

By the numbers

Cigarette taxes would rise under Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal, but state aid to help smokers quit would decrease.

Average price per cigarette pack in Wisconsin: $6.03*
Proposed state tax increase taking effect Sept. 1: 75 cents
Percentage increase in price per pack: 12.4 percent
Percentage increase in state tax per pack: 42.4 percent
Anti-tobacco grants: $15.3 million a year
Proposed decrease: $900,000 million a year
Percentage decrease: 5.9 percent

* Includes 61-cent federal increase taking effect April 1.

Sources: State of Wisconsin; Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids