Welcome to

Legislation in Tallahassee has been filed to raise the price of a pack of smokes. Florida’s tax on cigarettes is one of the lowest in the nation at about 34 cents a pack.

The tax hasn’t been raised in more than a decade. State Representative Jim Waldman is sponsoring a one dollar per pack cigarette tax increase and says the money raised by the increase would go to state healthcare programs.

“I think you need to have a source of revenue that can pay for health care cost and this can do it, and that’s why we are calling it a user fee because this is to go to cost of healthcare for those individuals who are suffering,” said Waldman.

Increasing the cigarette tax a dollar could raise as much as a billion dollars.