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Aspen Tobacco Tax Campaign

September 27, 2017

The Aspen City Council referred a tobacco tax measure, ballot issue 2B, to the November 2017 ballot.  

Ballot Issue 2B seeks to establish a $3.00 per pack cigarette tax in Aspen, including a ten cent per pack, per year, increase for the next ten years to take the total local tax to $4.00 per pack in a decade; and the measure also establishes a 40% sales tax on other tobacco products (OTP), including electronic cigarettes.  In addition to the benefit of reducing smoking, Ballot Issue 2B invests the tax revenue back into the Aspen community for local financing of health and human services, tobacco-related health issues, and addiction and substance abuse education and mitigation.

ACS CAN advocates for regular and significant increases in federal, state, and local excise taxes that will increase the price of all tobacco products.

  • Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in Colorado, taking 5,100 lives every year.
  • The low price of tobacco products makes it easy for youth to afford to start and continue smoking, and current taxes do little to defray the societal cost smoking has on the Colorado economy.  
  • Colorado kids smoke over 7 million packs of cigarettes a year. Raising the cigarette tax is one of the most effective way to reduce smoking, prevent more kids from starting to smoke and reduce the death and disease caused by smoking. 
  • The most recent public health data available indicate that 15.6% of Colorado adults currently smoke cigarettes, while 8.0% of Colorado high school youth reported currently smoking cigarettes, and 11.3% of Colorado high schoolers used e-cigarettes.

If you are interested in getting news about the campaign or if you want to volunteer for the campaign, please fill out this short volunteer interest form.


Resources:

Sample Ballot

ACS CAN Tobacco Tax Increase Fact Sheet.

Colorado How Do You Measure Up Report

Preventing Millions of Lives Lost to Tobacco Use

News Stories:

http://www.aspentimes.com/news/tobacco-tax-question-ok/ 

 

Paid for by Yes on Aspen Ballot Issue 2B, Ronald J. Ours, Jr., Treasurer.

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