Residents of eight states will go to the polls this fall to vote on tobacco-control measures, the Christian Science Monitor reported Aug. 28.

In the most active electoral season for tobacco issues, voters will vote on measures to raise tobacco taxes and ban workplace smoking. Experts say a recent court decision that tobacco companies lied about the health risks of smoking may increase public support for such laws, and that the state ballot initiatives may push Congress to increase regulation of tobacco.

"By 2008 or 2009, we may have made every state smoke-free in restaurants and the workplace," said Paul Billings, vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association. "As people visit places like New York, California, Delaware, or Maine and have a smoke-free experience, they come to expect it in their own state."

Advocates in California are asking voters to raise taxes $2.60 per pack; Arizona and Ohio are among the states where residents will vote on whether to ban smoking in most indoor public spaces.

Tobacco company R.J. Reynolds is spending about $40 million in hopes of defeating such measures, by sponsoring sound-alike ballot items with health-oriented names. "Their proposal just protects the pocketbook of Big Tobacco," said Troy Corder of Smoke-Free Arizona.