© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tobacco Taxes Get Scrapped in Ohio House Budget

a photo of a cigarette
PHONRAT
/
SHUTTERSTOCK
The Ohio House is pushing back on Gov. Kasich's proposed taxes on tobacco products.

The proposed budget coming out of the Ohio House doesn't include a 65-cents-per-pack tobacco tax proposed by Gov. John Kasich. The budget also omits plans for a uniform tax across all tobacco products. 

House Finance Chair Ryan Smith says one reason the taxes were scrapped is the fear that more Ohioans would go to Kentucky, Indiana or West Virginia, bordering states where cigarettes already cost less. But that doesn’t sit well with Jeff Stephens with the American Cancer Society’s Action Network.

“Seven thousand plus people are dying of cancer related tobacco use every year, $20,000 when you add in heart disease, lung disease etcetera. They’re just not keeling over right away of overdoses.”

Stephens says each Ohio household pays $1000 a year to treat people who develop cancer related diseases. To make matters worse, Stephens says the funding for tobacco cessation was also cut by 75 percent in the House version of the budget.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.