Will the real addicts please stand up?
Coda
Greg Bean

It’s certainly nice to see the entire New Jersey Legislature is not made up of hypocrites.

Recently, when then-acting Gov. Richard J. Codey signed a smoking ban into law making it illegal, as of April 15, to smoke in restaurants, bars and most indoor public buildings, the bill was like a beautiful woman with a big, oozing carbuncle on the end of her nose.

The beautiful woman is a law that will make it possible for us nonsmokers to enjoy a neighborhood tavern for an hour or so without coming out coughing and smelling like an ashtray. The carbuncle is the provision in the law that exempts Atlantic City casinos from the ban.

As we noted in an editorial that ran in many of our newspapers, the casino exemption is an unfair provision that came about simply because state lawmakers were reluctant to anger the powerful casino lobby. As we said, “If the state is going to pass a law in the name of public health ... then it should be applied fairly, across the board. The imminent dangers of secondhand smoke the politicians harp on are no different in a family-owned tavern than a swanky casino.”

Granted, it’s not the first time the Legislature has acted in such a shifty fashion. Remember when they approved a sweeping reform of the state’s freedom of information laws, and then exempted themselves from its provisions?

But I was still happy to read in an Associated Press story Jan. 19 that a state assemblyman and three state senators had introduced a bill to close the loophole and include casinos in the ban.

I support the bill, but smokers who hope this is the last salvo in the battle are going to be disappointed.

Right now, there are bills in the Legislature to prohibit smoking while driving and smoking in some outdoor locations, like beaches.

And it’s my prediction that sometime in the very near future, someone will propose legislation in New Jersey that mirrors a Seattle law that makes it illegal to smoke within 25 feet of the entrance of any publicly accessible building. That measure, designed to keep secondhand smoke from drifting through an open door, places the responsibility for policing the 25-foot rule on the owner of the building, and may be tough to enforce. Even so, I doubt it’ll be long before someone in New Jersey decides to try passing it here.

This Death By A Thousand Cuts for smokers won’t stop there, either. In the near future, someone will decide that even though people are allowed to smoke in their own homes, they shouldn’t be allowed to force their secondhand smoke on children and others who live with them. Someone will propose a Take It Outside law, and it will pass. After that, there’ll be a law making it a crime to smoke within 1,000 feet of any school. And after that, who knows?

At this point, a thinking person will undoubtedly ask: If our ultimate goal is simply to make any use of tobacco products illegal, why don’t we go for the gusto and propose a total prohibition?

That makes sense, and it would certainly save a lot of time. But unfortunately, it won’t happen for one important reason: Our governments make so much money from cigarette taxes they really don’t want smokers to quit, they just want it to look like they want them to quit.

In New Jersey, for example, when the state tax on a pack of smokes was 80 cents, gross cigarette tax for 2001 was $393.1 million. Next year, they raised the tax to $1.40 and that increase was expected to generate an additional $240 million in 2003, $235 million in 2004, and $230 million in 2005.

The state wasn’t satisfied with that, however, and continued raising cigarette taxes every year until 2004. The New Jersey tax, which now stands at $2.40 per pack (the second highest in the nation), raised $760.8 million in revenue during 2004, and although 2005 figures are not yet available, revenues for last year were expected to be up.

Cigarette taxes, in other words, make up about 3 percent of the entire state revenue stream.

At the federal level, where excise taxes on a pack of smokes are 39 cents a pack, the total revenue from those taxes for 2004 was almost $7.8 Billion.

That’s Billion, with a capital B — enough to build a half-dozen bridges to nowhere, with plenty of pork left over.

Who among us is naive enough to think our state and federal lawmakers really want that much revenue to go away?

Does anyone think Gov. Jon Corzine, facing a huge financial crisis as his new administration takes office, would be happy to lose the approximately $3 billion in cigarette tax revenue that will be collected during his four-year term of office?

You think George W. Bush would be happy to give up the $30 billion or so his administration collects every four years?

I don’t think so, and when you look under that particular rock, you find an even greater hypocrisy than the casino exemption. Our state and federal lawmakers want to make it as difficult and expensive as they can for smokers, to make them social pariahs, but they can’t really afford, nor want for them to quit.

They’re addicted to the money, and you don’t break that nasty habit with gum or patches.

• • •

Speaking of weird New Jersey politics: Down in Howell last week, opponents of Mayor Joseph M. DiBella filed their intent to petition for his recall. The document, according to our story, identifies the filers as “The Committee to Recall Joseph M. DiBella from the Office of Mayor of the Township of Howell.”

Why do they want DiBella recalled? They won’t say.

“The committee chooses not to set forth a statement of the reasons for the recall,” their document said. In other words, we want DiBella out of office, but we ain’t gonna tell you why.

I hear voters on mind-altering drugs are lining up to sign the petition in droves.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers.