(1) Counties and cities may impose an additional tax on a pack of cigarettes in AL, 1¢ to 6¢; IL, 10¢ to 15¢; MO, 4¢ to 7¢; TN, 1¢; and VA, 2¢ to 15¢.

(2) Dealers pay an additional enforcement and administrative fee of 0.1¢ per pack in KY and 0.05¢.

(3) HI, cigarette tax will increase to $1.00 per pack on 6/30/98.

Although this data applies only to the State of Minnesota, other states are probably similar. At least it will give some idea of the income a state receives as a result of its cigarette tax.

Rate: 48¢ per pack of 20 cigarettes.

Credits: Distributors receive a 1% discount on the first $1,500,000 of stamps purchased and 0.6% on additional purchases. The discount covers tax compliance expenses.

Tobacco Products Tax

Tax Base: Tobacco products, other than cigarettes, sold or used in Minnesota, including cigars, smoking tobacco, and chewing tobacco.

Rate: 35% of wholesale price.

Credits: Distributors allowed discount equal to 1.5% of tax for tax compliance expenses.

History: Enacted in 1955 at rate of 15% of wholesale price.

[Caution: The following data comes from the Minnesota Blue Cross organization. All health care providers are big guns in anti-smoking circles and their figures tend to be biased with an eye to their bottom line.]

* One of every six deaths each year in Minnesota is related to smoking cigarettes.

* 6,400 deaths per year in Minnesota are caused by cigarette use, including deaths by cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases and cigarette-ignited fires.

Costs

* Cigarette smoking is estimated to cost Minnesotans $1.3 billion each year, including health care costs and lost income from death and disease. This is seven times greater than the annual $183 million collected by the state in excise taxes on tobacco (48 cents per pack tax rate).

* Estimated health care costs attributed to cigarette smoking, including costs for hospitals, physicians and other medical professionals, nursing homes and medications, were more than $513 million in 1995. This equals $111 for each person in Minnesota.

Teen smoking

* Between 1993 and 1995, smoking among Minnesota adults declined by 2 percent - 22.5 percent in 1993 to 20.5 percent in 1995. However, smoking among children under age 18 increased.

* In 1995, more Minnesota 12th graders reported smoking cigarettes during the previous 30 days than 12th graders across the United States - 39 percent vs. 33.5 percent - about 5 percent higher than the national average.

* 12th graders smoking at least once each week increased from 22 percent in 1993 to 25 percent in 1995.

* From 1989 to 1995, the rate of smoking among 9th graders who smoked weekly rose from 14 percent to 18 percent.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes tobacco a protected crop and cigarettes are included in GIs' C-rations. Tobacco companies send millions of cigarettes, mostly the popular brands, to GIs.

1947 The song "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke That Cigarette" is a national hit.

1950 TV Guide picks Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" spot as the commercial of the year. In it, cheerleaders sing: "Yes, Luckies get our loudest cheers on campus and on dates. With college gals and college guys a Lucky really rates."

1951 "I Love Lucy" begins and is the top-rated show for four of its first six full seasons. It is sponsored by Philip Morris.

R.J. Reynolds introduces Winston filter-tip brand, emphasizing taste.

1952 Reader's Digest publishes an article about dangers of smoking under the headline: "Cancer by the Carton."

1954 The Marlboro cowboy is created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett. At the time Marlboro has 0.25 percent of the American market.

1957 U.S. surgeon general says statistical evidence indicates that excessive cigarette smoking may cause lung cancer.

1964 Debate over airing cigarette commercials heats up after the surgeon general issues a report that finds smoking to be a health hazard.

1964 Marlboro Country ad campaign is launched with the slogan: "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country." Marlboro sales begin growing at 10 percent a year.

1966 Congress passes a law requiring a warning label on cigarette packages. The label reads: "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health."

1966 R.J. Reynolds filter-tip Winston becomes top-selling cigarette in the United States.

1968 Philip Morris introduces the Virginia Slims brand aimed at women.

1970 Congress votes to ban cigarette advertising on radio and television starting in 1971.

1970 The warning label on cigarette packages changes to: "Warning: The surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health."

1971 The on-air ban of cigarette ads takes effect and the broadcast industry loses $220 million in advertising.

1971 R.J. Reynolds begins sponsorship of NASCAR's Winston Cup Series.

1971 Virginia Slims tennis begins.

1972 Marlboro becomes the best-selling cigarette in the world, and Marlboro Lights are introduced.

1973 The Civil Aeronautics Board starts requiring no-smoking sections on all commercial airliners.

1973 "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match features Billie Jean King, wearing Virginia Slims colors and Virginia Slims sequins on her chest. She defeats Bobby Riggs.

1974 Lynn Smith organizes the first D-Day (an annual day set aside for smokers to quit in Monticello, Minn., leading to a statewide D-Day.)

1975 The Minnesota Clean Air Act goes into effect, and Minnesota becomes the first state with a comprehensive law restricting indoor smoking in public places.

1977 The American Cancer Society sponsors a nationwide D-Day called the Great American Smokeout.

1979 Minneapolis and St. Paul become the first U.S. cities to ban the distribution of free cigarette samples.

1981 Insurance companies start offering discounts for non-smokers.

1984 The FDA approves nicotine gum as a "new drug."

1984 The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act was amended to require that warning labels appear in a specific format on cigarette packages and in most related advertising.

1985 Philip Morris buys food and coffee giant General Foods (Post cereal, Jell-O, Maxwell House Coffee) for $5.6 billion. Philip Morris Companies Inc. is founded as a diversified holding company with headquarters in New York City, comprising Philip Morris Inc. and the General Foods Corp.

1986 The surgeon general says secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer.

1986 R.J. Reynolds Industries Inc. becomes RJR Nabisco Inc.

1987 Congress bans smoking on domestic flights of less than two hours.

1987 RJR begins the Joe Camel ad campaign.

1988 The surgeon general issues a report saying cigarette smoking is addictive by the same scientific standards that apply to illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

1988 The World Health Organization sponsors a worldwide version of D-Day.

1988 Northwest Airlines declares all North American flights to be smoke free; other U.S. carriers eventually follow suit.

1988 Philip Morris acquires Kraft Inc. for $12.9 billion.

1989 Saatchi and Saatchi designs Northwest Airlines' Smoke-free Skies campaign; R.J. Reynolds withdraws its Oreo account, which Saatchi had for 18 years.

1989 Marlboro has 25 percent of the American market.

1989 R.J. Reynolds abandons Premier, its smokeless cigarette, after unsuccessful test-marketing in Arizona and Missouri.

1990 Smoking is banned on all domestic flights of less than six hours, except to Alaska or Hawaii. Smoking also is banned on U.S. intercity buses.

1991 The American Heart Association says second-hand smoke causes 53,000 deaths in the United States annually.

1991 Saatchi and Saatchi unit Campbell Mithun tests a campaign for Kool that featured a cartoon smoking penguin wearing shades, a buzz cut and Day-Glo sneakers.

1992 Nicotine patch is introduced.

1992 Supreme Court rules that the 1966 warning label law does not shield tobacco companies from all lawsuits.

1992 Marvin Shanken publishes first issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.

1993 The Environmental Protection Agency says secondhand smoke can cause cancer in humans and estimates it is responsible for 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in non-smoking adults and impairs the lungs of hundreds of thousands of children.

1993 Financial World ranks Marlboro the world's most valuable brand (value: $39.5 billion).

1994 Frank Blethen's Seattle Times becomes the largest U.S. newspaper to refuse tobacco advertising. "These ads were designed to kill our readers," said Times President H. Mason Sizemore, "so we decided to refuse them."

1994 Minnesota and Blue Cross/Blue Shield sue tobacco companies for violating antitrust laws by failing to disclose addictive qualities of tobacco.

1994 The Federal Trade Commission votes 3-2 not to file a complaint that the R.J. Reynolds Joe Camel ad campaign encourages children to buy cigarettes. Two commissioners issue strongly dissenting opinions.

1994 Financial World ranks Marlboro the world's No. 2 most valuable brand next to Coca-Cola (value: $38.7 billion). The brand also has 29 percent of the U.S. market, the highest share it has ever had.

1995 Philip Morris announces unprecedented recall of 8 billion cigarettes due to a suspected chemical containment.

1995 FDA declares nicotine a drug.

1995 The five largest tobacco companies file suit in a North Carolina court challenging the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco and advertising. The advertising industry files in North Carolina within days. Smokeless tobacco manufacturers U.S. Tobacco Co. and Conwood Co. file suit in Tennessee.

1995 ABC-TV apologizes to Philip Morris after a libel suit for a "Day One" report that the company had manipulated nicotine levels in its cigarettes. The network paid Philip Morris an estimated $16 million in legal fees.

1995 The New York Times reports that CBS killed a "60 Minutes" interview with a whistle-blowing former Brown and Williamson executive (later revealed to be Jeffrey Wigand). That day, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, KCBS, killed an anti-tobacco ad that had been running for weeks.

1996 Liggett Group makes dramatic break with industry, offers to settle Medicaid and addiction-based suits.

1996 Liggett tentatively settles with five states over Medicaid suits.

1996 The FDA releases statements of three more tobacco industry insiders claiming Philip Morris carefully controls nicotine levels in cigarettes.

1996 Former heavy smoker Grady Carter awarded $750,000 from Brown and Williamson Tobacco by a Florida jury that determined the manufacturer was negligent for not warning about the danger of cigarettes. The verdict is being appealed.

1997 Florida settlement with tobacco industry. $11.3 billion over a 25 year period.

1997 Mississippi tobacco settlement. $3.4 billion over a 25 year period.

1998 Texas tentative tobacco settlement. $14.5 billion.

1998 McCain bill which would have raised cigarette taxes an additional $1.10 per pack and fined the tobacco industry $368 billion defeated in the Senate because of porkbarrel riders.

1998 Minnesota tobacco settlement. $6.1 billion over a 25 year period.

1998 $950,000 verdict against Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation for smoker's death. The largest award ever and the first for punitive damages.

May, 1998 $15 billion diverted from VA health benefits to new $216 billion road and mass transit programs, canceling health benefits to veterans who smoke.

5-29-1998 Congress claimed veterans who smoked on active duty engaged in willful misconduct. Veterans groups protested so much the language was deleted.

7-19-98 A North Carolina Federal judge rules 1993 EPA study wrongly declared secondhand smoke a dangerous carcinogen, a decision that could impact some local and regional ordinances banning smoking.