State officials claim the new cigarette tax increase is working because tax revenues are up and the sale of cigarettes is down.

State smokers bought almost 60 million fewer packs of cigarettes during the 2018-2019 fiscal year (July through June) – about a 25 percent drop from the previous fiscal year.

And the new $1 a pack tax increase brought in $133 million more than the previous years.

In fiscal year 2018, the tribes sold almost 57 million tax stamps while state retailers sold more than 171 million tax stamps. That was a total of more than 228 million tax stamps.

In fiscal year 2019, the tribal figure dropped to less than 48 million tax stamps and the retail figure fell to 168 million.

In other words, these statistics seem to indicate that almost 60 million fewer packs of cigarettes were sold in that time period yet state revenues increased by about $133 million.

State health officials and financial bureaucrats are very happy about these figures.

Here’s the problem.

When you raise taxes on an item, several things happen. First, people buy fewer of them because they are more expensive. That works if you are not addicted to the product, like with cigarettes.

Secondly, there are no statistics yet available on how many Oklahomans are buying cigarettes in neighboring states or online. Those sales could be skyrocketing – we just don’t know yet.

Let’s hope that the tax hike on cigarettes has the desire effect and people smoke less (or not at all) instead of driving to Missouri, Arkansas or Kansas to buy smokes or order cigarettes online.