Washington State Cigarettes Nearly 40% Contraband: Study

A soon-to-be published study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan reveals 36% of all cigarettes consumed in Washington are contraband, KREM.com reports. "The bottom line here is that many governments are making tobacco products as valuable as illicit narcotics," said Mackinac's Michael LaFaive. Contraband cigarettes for Washingtonians are any that do not pay the state’s $3.02 per pack tax. In 2010, Washington State increased its cigarette tax by a dollar a pack to the fourth highest state tax in the nation.
The Washington Department of Revenue’s Mike Gowrylow said his department will soon release its own contraband cigarette data, and he expects the number of contraband cigarettes to be about one in three. “(That’s) substantial, to go from one in four contraband cigarettes (the figure prior to the 2010 tax hike) to one in three,” Gowrylow said. By Washington State’s last estimate in 2011, 94 million packs of cigarettes were consumed in the state, a tax loss of $284 million for the state. Officials have said it’s difficult to quantify how much of the smuggling is from criminal organizations and how much is “casual smuggling” — from people who purchase their cigarettes out of the state, where the tax is cheaper.