It's my understanding that retailers now have until October 15th to show whether they were able to raise the money needed to offset the tax. Please check with the State of New Hampshire. The tax did not increase.

1. Some have argued higher cigaret taxes are beneficial because they depress usage especially among minors. I'm not sure-- the decline in addiction has been less than the rate of tax increase and the percentage of adult pop. hooked (in US) is still somewhere near 20%. 2. As a bigger part of government revenues comes to depend on cigarets being bought, don't bureaucrats and politicians get more addicted to the money? So they are eager to reimburse the companies in various ways, such as paying cops, prosecutors, judges etc. to suppress cannabis (872,000 arrests a year, costing nearly $10 bil.) so children will abandon hope and turn to $$ cigarets instead. 3. Maybe what's needed is a BAILOUT-- for the addicts, tobacco industry, farmers, retail pharmacies, the guy who drives the truck loaded with cigarets, etc. Earmark the tax money to be used for addict treatment programs, and also for retraining and new jobs for those who used to make money off the cigaret business. (Till now state govts. have siphoned off the 1998 Clinton-Gore settlement money and diverted it to the usual good stuff, schools, roads etc. while avoiding the general tax rate increases all voters hate.)

Let's hope NH retailers ARE affected by the increase! This is great news -- a "shortfall" in cigarette consumption and an increase in cigarette taxes. It would be even better if they were to use the tax revenues for smoking cessation programs. But the other side of the coin is -- who are we to interfere with a person's freedom to shorten their own life.