Proposition 86 would impose a new cigarette tax of $0.13/cigarette sold in California. The funds raised would be used for everything from hospital trauma centers to funding for cancer research.
The argument for Proposition 86 is that smoking kills, and increasing the tax will (a) lessen the number of smokers, (b) allow funding for lots of needed programs, and (c) lead to research that might cure cancer and other diseases. The argument against Proposition 86 is that (a) we would create another bureaucracy, (b) most of the funding doesn’t go towards stopping smoking but goes toward hospitals that don’t need the money, and (c) increasing the tax on cigarettes to the nation’s highest will lead to an increase in black market cigarettes and crime.
As always, read the initiative and make up your own mind.