As the Pennsylvania sate budget has a roughly $1 billion hole, two Democratic lawmakers are eager to convince the assembly to implement a hefty tax on such tobacco products as cigars and smokeless items, as the latter segment is growing rapidly and tobacco companies create more and more smokeless tobacco products.

Reps. Dan Frankel and Gene DePasquale backed by several public health groups attempted to persuade fellow Pennsylvanian lawmakers to amend the state’s tobacco tax legislation, which currently doesn’t cover cigars and smokeless tobacco, being the only state across the nation to not tax these tobacco products.

The legislators have introduced two measures - HB 57 and HB 2405 - that would levy a 60% tax on cigars and smokeless items. Smokeless tax free tobacco is defined in the bill as usual chewing tobacco, offered in cans and pouches, such as Copenhagen and Grizzly brands, and the latest products, which look like tablets, toothpicks and strips, dissolve in the mouth and come in a variety of flavors.

Rep. Frankel once managed to include a tax on smokeless tobacco, introduced to the House-passed version of the state budget in 2009, however, the Senate voted down the tax collection, and it was rejected before the budget was adopted last October.

While several critics of the tax on smokeless tobacco and cigars argued that the tax would reduce sales of these products and affect employees of Pennsylvania tobacco shops and industry as a whole. However, Mr. Frankel claimed that even North Carolina and Virginia, nation’s key tobacco states, levy a tax on smokeless tobacco.

Rep. DePasquale expressed particular concerns over the products such as Snus, and dissolvable tobacco, currently test-marketed under Camel brand-name by RJ Reynolds that are offered in convenient and colorful metal packages and provide a variety of flavors, but could attract adolescents to nicotine.

According to the estimations made up by DePasquale and Frankel, the introduced tax could generate up to $80 million annually. A part of that revenue can be used to fund smoking cessation and prevention programs, which were eliminated in 2009 due to the huge budget deficit, which constituted $3.2 billion.

As regards the current fiscal year, profits are nearly $720 million below the anticipated, and the state budget could end up with a $1 billion hole, when the financial year ends on June 30. Thus, the lawmakers admit that the state has to find additional source to generate revenues from.

Mr. Frankel claimed that collecting taxes on smokeless tobacco would not only generate revenues for the state but also prevent the adolescents from trying these products, assuming that they are healthier than cigarettes.

Meanwhile, Erik Arneson, Communications and Policy Director for Majority Leader Dominic F. Pileggi, admitted that the lawmakers have to be focused on reducing expenses, and not on introducing new taxes on taxpayers.