Tobacco companies spent millions trying to defeat a cigarette tax hike in California, but the measure may have been rejected by voters largely because backers wanted too big an increase, some experts say.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported Nov. 9 that tobacco companies outspent backers of the $2.60-cent-per-pack proposed tax hike by a margin of $65 million to $13 million. But Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll, said the antitax campaign mounted by tobacco companies was not the deciding factor at the polls, where 52 percent of voters rejected the tax increase.

"California voters approved raising the cigarette tax by 25 cents in 1988 and by 50 cents in 1998, so there's certainly a sentiment to approving this kind of initiative," said DiCamillo. "But this tax increase may have been too much for voters to stomach, particularly Latinos and other minorities and those who have never smoked. They may have felt that it was unfair to smokers and to low-income people. If the supporters had gone for an 80-cent or $1 increase, it likely would have had a better chance of passing."

However, William Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said that tobacco companies succeeded in confusing voters about how the California tax money would be spent. "They overwhelmed voters with their spending and their misleading message that the tax money could be misspent, if not wasted," Corr said. "If that proposition had passed, it would have provided for the best-funded tobacco prevention and cessation program in the country."

Tobacco companies also were celebrating the defeat of an 80-cent-per-pack tax in Missouri, although cigarette tax hikes were approved in Arizona and South Dakota. "We're pleased that voters in California and Missouri decided it was not in their best fiscal interest to pass extremely large tax increases on a minority of the population in those states," said David Howard, a spokesperson for R.J. Reynolds.