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LETTER: Tobacco tax lowered Md.'s smoking rate  

In Wednesday's column disparaging Maryland's life-saving 2007 tobacco tax increase ("Did cigarette tax increase do more harm than good?" March 17), Marc Kilmer neglects to mention that this increase, along with other policies such as Maryland's smoke free workplace law also encated in 2007, have combined to make Maryland's smoking rate the fourth lowest in the nation, saving thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars that would have been lost because of tobacco caused illness and death.

Like the tobacco companies and other critics of tobacco tax increases, Mr. Kilmer wrongly asserts that the drop in tobacco sales in Maryland after the tax went up was caused by people buying their tobacco in other states and that the tax did not bring in as much as was expected. . . .

Plainly, Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Maryland General Assembly can be very proud of the success of the 2007 tobacco tax increase, and we look forward to working with them very soon to raise that tax again in order to keep reducing smoking and continuing to expand health care in Maryland.

Vincent DeMarco, Baltimore

The writer is president of the Maryland Citizens Health Initiative.

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