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Tobacco Tax Hike Rocks Roll-Your-Own Smokers

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By LAURA FRAZIER

lfrazier@tampatrib.com

Published: March 26, 2009

VALRICO - Nicotine fiends who make it a habit to roll their own butts and save a few bucks will see their savings go up in smoke Wednesday when a new federal excise tax on tobacco kicks in.

Santiago Carrasco, store manager of Tobacco Depot on Bloomingdale Avenue in Valrico, said the money-saving roll-your-own option caught on like wildfire last summer with cigarette smokers strapped for cash.

About the time gas hit $4 a gallon, smokers came in packs to his store to ask how - and how much it would cost - to roll their own cigarettes.

"Our 1-pound bags of tobacco sold at the time for about $12," Carrasco said. "The mathematics were something beautiful. It all worked out to about $8 a carton."

A roll-your-own section of the store features tobacco, paper tubes with or without filters and inexpensive rolling machines. Customers can use the store's machine free to roll their smokes.
Carrasco said the do-it-yourself department that has been smokin' for some eight months is about to be extinguished by the looming federal tobacco tax.

Signs posted at the store warn customers that 1-pound bags of tobacco - now $17.49 - will soar to $67.49 a bag or more after the tax and new wholesale and retail markups are tacked on. That translates to more than $20 to roll your own carton.

"That's why Big Tobacco got behind this tax," Carrasco said. "It forces the roll-your-own consumers back to buying their product."

The only way a smoker can save money now is to decide to quit, cut back or go with a budget brand that will sell by the carton for about $20 plus sales tax after the 62-cents a pack increase on cigarettes goes into effect.

"Now I have to close my entire roll-your-own section," he said.

The price increase also is bad news for the farmer in Kentucky from whom Carrasco buys tobacco.

"He will be out of business," he said.

The excise tax is an extension and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program that was signed into law Feb. 4 by President Barack Obama. The tax is expected to provide an additional $32.8 billion during the next 41/2 years to give health care to an additional 4 million children.

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523.

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