• March 28, 2024

Suit over ‘cessation fee’

 Suit over ‘cessation fee’

Oklahoma’s Attorney General Mike Hunter has said he will defend the state after two major tobacco companies and other interested parties filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a tobacco cessation fee, according to a story by Heide Brandes for the Red Dirt Report.

Philip Morris USA and RJ Reynolds filed suit with the Oklahoma Supreme Court over a bill that was signed into law in May.

Senate Bill 845 imposes a fee of $1.50 per pack of cigarettes, to be paid for by wholesalers.

The fee is scheduled to go into effect in August.

Lawmakers approved the fee as a revenue-raising measure to help fill Oklahoma’s nearly $900 million budget hole and as a way of reducing tobacco smoking.

The fee is designed to help fund health initiatives in Oklahoma.

The suit claims that the bill is not a cessation fee and is instead a strictly revenue-raising bill. According to the lawsuit, all revenue-raising bills must originate in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, be passed before the last five days of a session and be approved by a three-quarters supermajority of House members.