01:09 PM CDT on Monday, May 9, 2005

Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana should add $1 per pack to its cigarette tax, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday, doubling her original proposal for money to boost teachers' salaries.

The House Ways and Means Committee passed the proposal, which needs a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.

The raises would go to public school teachers, college faculty and school support workers across the state.

"They need a raise. Louisiana needs fewer smokers," the governor told the committee. She said the tax would bring in an estimated $182 million, even after factoring in the expected drop in cigarette usage it would lead to.

Blanco said afterward that she went with a higher cigarette tax because lawmakers preferred to vote on only one tax increase. Supporters will hold back on proposed new taxes on video poker and alcohol until they see how well the cigarette tax does.

A poll last month, paid for by the American Cancer Society, found that 65 percent of Louisiana's residents would support a 75-cent tobacco tax increase. The current tax, 36 cents per pack of cigarettes, is among the nation's lowest. Forty-one states have higher rates, according to the American Lung Association.

Opponents included several cigarette wholesalers who predict that passage of the tax will hurt their sales while increasing illegal smuggling of cigarettes from states with lower taxes, such as Mississippi, which charges 18 cents per pack.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)