LANSING �?? Gov, Jennifer Granholm may want to double the tax rate on non-cigarette tobacco products in an effort to plug part of next year’s budget hole with $45 million in expected revenue, but she is not alone. Several states have already introduced bills to increase the tax on other tobacco products and two Southern states have signed the bills into law.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, policymakers continue to hone in on tobacco taxes as a source of enhanced revenue in general, as well as a way to pay for specific public health programs.

So far this year, 17 states have introduced bills relating to tobacco taxes, according to NCSL. Seven of the 17 state proposals deal with increasing the tax or fee on other tobacco products, according to NCSL.

The legislation comes at the same time the federal government approved a hike on the cigarette excise tax effective April 1. The $1 excise tax was part of the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan legislation President Barack Obama signed into law in February.

Granholm’s plan would decrease the differential between the tax on cigarettes and on other tobacco products. The state currently charges $2 per pack of cigarettes, which ties Michigan with seven other states. Five other states charge more than $2 per pack, according to NCSL.

Two states that tax cigarettes significantly less recently approved hikes in their excise tax on cigarettes, but Arkansas and Kentucky also approved measures related to other tobacco products.

In Arkansas, the tax on pipes, chewing tobacco and cigars increased to 68 percent of the wholesale price from 32 percent. And in Kentucky, the tax on snuff and other tobacco products would be doubled.

Several states have proposed raising the cigarette tax, which is not part of Granholm’s proposal. Michigan lawmakers last raised the cigarette tax a few years ago.

NCSL noted in its report that about a dozen states had not filed or printed any bills this year and were therefore not included in the analysis.

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