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Cigarette Tax May Increase In Missouri

Missouri's cigarette tax is currently one of the lowest in the country.
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A ballot measure that would raise Missouri’s cigarette tax is starting to catch smoke. Campaigns for and against the hike have been heating up over the last few days.

Leaders of the effort to raise the state’s tobacco tax are making stops across Missouri through the end of this week, to places like here to lee’s summit. On a yellow school bus.

“We have lots of exciting things on the bus. We have yards signs. We have stickers for our supporters,”  Snodgrass said.

Misty Snodgrass, with the American cancer society says a jump in the state’s cigarette tax, currently the lowest in the country, to 90 cents a pack would help reign in the state’s high smoking rate while directing half of that added tax revenue into schools.

“And I think the benefits of it are that we’re going to keep kids from smoking and provide much needed revenue to local public schools,” Snodgrass.

Opponents of the tax hope to get folks like Jackie Martin and Fred Kennedy, here at discount smokes a few miles west of lee’s summit, out to the polls.

A statewide convenience store association kicked off their campaign against the tax increase last week, sending out pamphlets and signs to stores and gas stations throughout the state.

The measure comes to a vote this November.