Glenn Rice and his wife, Kim, together smoke about a pack of cigarettes a day.

That’s a habit he’s about to kick.

Tobacco Express employee Charles Palmer rings up a customer's cigarette purchase. Lawrence smokers are stocking up on cigarettes before a state-imposed, 46 cent-per-pack tax increase becomes effective Monday.

The state’s cigarette tax will increase Monday by 46 cents a pack nearly tripling from 24 cents to 70 cents. Rice, who is working on his doctorate in mathematics at Kansas University, said the increase made this a prime moment to quit smoking.

“It’s going to get pretty steep it’s pretty steep as it is,” he said Friday. “We’ll probably quit. It’s time, anyway.”

In Lawrence and across Kansas, smokers are hoarding pre-tax smokes. Many are buying numerous cartons; some are buying cases.

“People are coming in because of the tax increase; they’re buying six cartons at a time, trying to stock up,” said Charles Palmer, a cashier at Tobacco Express, 2104-A W. 25th St. “I don’t think anybody’s happy about it, but they’ll probably end up dealing with it anyway.”

The higher cigarette tax was part of a $252 million package of tax increases and one of the new laws taking effect Monday, the start of the state’s 2003 fiscal year. Supporters of the tax package said it would prevent massive cuts in education and social services.

Merchants across the state reported consumers were buying more cigarettes than usual to avoid the coming increase.

Dealers also worried about what would happen after the flurry of pre-Monday sales. They believe their customers will seek cheaper cigarettes in other states or on Indian reservations.

“They’re running a lot of good people out of business, honest people,” said Jeff Galemore, who sells cigarettes in Iola.

Despite the anger of tobacco merchants and smokers, many legislators who supported the tax package saw the increase for cigarettes as the least painful part of it.

The tax will increase again Jan. 1 by another 9 cents a pack, making it 79 cents, or 55 cents higher than the pre-Monday rate. The state expects the increases to raise about $82 million in the next 12 months.

Gov. Bill Graves had proposed a 65-cent increase, and some legislative leaders said early in the session that a higher cigarette tax was a given.

Public health advocates even saw the higher tax as popular. They cited a pre-session poll that suggested a large majority of Kansans supported a 75-cent increase.

According to health officials, about a quarter of the state’s 2.6 million residents smoke. That means three-quarters of them don’t and don’t pay the cigarette tax.

But Sally Finney, a lobbyist for the Kansas Public Health Assn., noted that the polling suggested even a significant minority of smokers thought the tax should increase.

She saw the revenue as covering some of the medical care the state provided for people with smoking-related illnesses. The tax increase also will discourage some young people from taking up the habit, she said.

“I’ve heard from people who’ve said, ‘Please increase the cost, because it will cause me to quit,”‘ Finney said. “I have never heard a smoker say, ‘Gosh, I’m really glad I started doing it.”

But Finney’s sentiments are foreign at the smoke shop in Iola.

Customer Helen Hyman of Piqua stopped by to pick up three packs of Saratogas. Then she related how, on a recent trip to Las Vegas, she bought 12 cartons, saving herself more than $12 a carton.

As for the future, she said, “I’ll probably buy them out-of-state.”

At the Hi-Way Food Basket grocery in Yates Center, about 20 miles west of Galemore’s store, customers mulled over the idea of buying their cigarettes outside Kansas and of making tobacco runs for each other.

Manager Sue Martin said, “I advise them to go to Missouri.”

The tax is 17 cents in Missouri, though residents there may vote on a 55-cent increase in November.

“People drive to Kansas City all the time just to shop,” Martin said. “Why wouldn’t they drive up there? I would if I were a smoker.”