Georgia study committee hears experts urge higher tobacco tax, restored prevention funding and stronger smoke‑free protections

Chair Cooper convened a Georgia House study committee on tobacco use to hear health experts and advocates who said Georgia’s low cigarette tax and recent federal funding cuts are driving a “hidden” cost in Medicaid and other state programs.

The committee heard repeated estimates that Georgia spends hundreds of millions more treating smoking‑related disease than it collects in tobacco revenue. "Last year, this state spent about $699,000,000 in Medicaid alone treating tobacco related disease," Andy Lord of the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology told the panel. Advocates said shifting from a retail sales tax to a wholesale excise tax and raising the per‑pack charge could both reduce smoking and generate predictable revenue for health care.

Why this matters: committee members were shown multiple analyses indicating a gap between the roughly $200 million Georgia collects annually from tobacco taxes and the much larger Medicaid and broader economic costs tied to smoking. Witnesses urged lawmakers to consider revenue and public health goals together — using tax increases to both deter smoking and pay for cessation, prevention and health services.

Health and fiscal evidence presented to the committee included recent estimates of smoking‑attributable costs, the state health benefit plan’s smoker surcharge and comparisons with other states. Dana Thompson, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Georgia, told the committee that smoking is "the number 1 cause of preventable disease and death worldwide" and that Georgia’s tobacco control program staff were recently cut after the federal Office on Smoking and Health lost funding. Kimberly Dickinson, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, emphasized that "there really is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke," describing harms from secondhand and thirdhand exposure in children.

Most prominent proposals and concerns

- Tobacco tax increase and structure: Multiple presenters recommended raising the per‑pack tax and collecting it as an excise tax at the wholesale level rather than as a sales tax. Andy Lord said fiscal estimates show "for about every penny you would raise the tobacco tax, you would generate about $4,000,000 a year in new revenue," and that "if we raised our tobacco tax by a dollar... we believe we'd generate about half a billion." Rep. Stevens (chairman by Zoom) suggested treating the charge as a user fee dedicated to health costs.

- Close the Medicaid gap and dedicate revenue: Witnesses argued the state is effectively subsidizing tobacco‑related costs because Medicaid bears a disproportionate share of treatment expenses. The committee was told that roughly $2.7 billion of Medicaid spending nationally can be attributed to cigarette smoking and that Georgia’s state‑share of that is estimated at about $850 million annually; current cigarette tax receipts were described as covering a small fraction of those costs.

- Restore prevention and cessation funding: Speakers including Bobby Antoine Nasser of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and Claudia Broadus of the Campaign for Tobacco‑Free Kids urged restoration of the Georgia Tobacco Use Prevention Program (GTAP) and removal of barriers to cessation services for Medicaid recipients. Dana Thompson and others described existing inconsistencies and copays among care management organizations and said legislation could codify coverage of all FDA‑approved cessation treatments and remove prior authorization.

- Strengthen smoke‑free protections: Laura Bracey of the American Heart Association and other witnesses recommended tightening the 2005 Georgia Smoke‑Free Air Act to close exemptions (private clubs, some employee break rooms, and 21+ establishments) and to make workplaces and multiunit housing more uniformly smoke‑free. Bracey noted that only about 23% of Georgians live under comprehensive smoke‑free policies while 61% nationwide do.

- Address vaping and product parity: Committee members agreed to devote a later meeting to vaping and e‑cigarette policy; speakers advised creating tax and regulatory parity between combustible cigarettes and newer nicotine products. The transcript identifies an existing bill (H.B. 84) and indicates vaping taxation differs because it is often volume‑based.

Questions and limits of authority

Legislators asked about the agricultural impact of higher tobacco taxes; multiple presenters said Georgia is no longer a leading tobacco producer and that tobacco acreage and manufacturing have declined. Several witnesses cautioned against overstating local economic harms while emphasizing public health and budget benefits.

Committee next steps and scope

The committee scheduled follow‑up work to get updated fiscal estimates and to hold a session focused on vaping. Witnesses provided data packages and offered to return; the next meeting date was set for July 17, 2025.

Ending note

Speakers repeatedly framed policy choices as a tradeoff: continue to bear rising health and economic costs or use tax and program changes to both reduce smoking and finance prevention, cessation and health services. The committee’s further work will determine whether lawmakers pursue a tax change, statutory changes to Medicaid cessation coverage, restored prevention funding or smoke‑free law amendments.