Taxpayer League: Smoking bans bad

10/01/2005

Dane Smith,
Star Tribune
October 1, 2005

The Taxpayers League of Minnesota, perhaps the state’s most powerful conservative interest group, issued two blasts this week against government antismoking initiatives.

On Tuesday, League president David Strom, noting a report that charitable-gambling receipts at bars have plunged in counties with smoking bans, declared that “smoking bans are killing businesses” and should be repealed.

On Friday he announced a major grass-roots lobbying effort, with a goal of sending 10,000 postcards to legislators, to repeal the 75-cents-a-pack health impact fee on cigarettes. Hundreds of tobacco retailers have been sent posters, along with postcards to distribute to customers, with the appropriate legislators’ photos and contact information.

Kerri Gordon, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT), said the league’s positions represent “a step backward for public health.”

“We’re not sure if they receive funding from tobacco companies and not sure what their motivation is,” Gordon said. “But science tells us what works to reduce smoking and tobacco use, and the positions taken by the Taxpayers League are in conflict with what the science tells us.”

After the fee went into effect, MPAAT saw a dramatic increase in telephone calls and website hits from Minnesotans looking for ways to quit, Gordon said.

Strom dismissed any suggestion that the league is closely allied to tobacco companies. Although tobacco interests have donated money to the league, it amounts to less than 1 percent of its revenue, he said. The league’s advocacy this week was launched on behalf of smokers, bars and charitable-gambling beneficiaries, Strom said.

“This is about a private-property right and an unfair, narrow tax with a phony ‘fee’ label,” Strom said. “We’ve been accused before of being in the pocket of the tobacco companies, from people who question your motives before they pay any attention to the argument.”

Strom pointed out that the league has criticized the health fee strongly since it was proposed last spring by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and that the opposition has been primarily based on the group’s fundamental goals of “lower taxes, more responsive government and the freedoms dear to all Americans,” he said. He acknowledged, however, that the league was “in contact” with tobacco lobbyists working against the fee increase during the legislative session.

Strom says he is trying again to quit. “I know it’s not healthy,” he said of smoking, “but it’s not the government’s role to tell me what to do or what not to do.”