If people find it so hard to stop smoking, does that mean that hiking the cigarette tax is a quick way for states to raise money? Not quite, says the Maine Heritage Policy Center.

Gov. John E. Baldacci of Maine hopes to raise $66 million for the general fund by increasing the state's cigarette tax from $2 a pack to $3. The tax on smokeless tobacco, as well as on cigars and pipe tobacco would also go up 50 percent.

But J. Scott Moody wonders if the revenue estimates were made through smoke-colored glasses. He points out that thus far, the actual yield of the tax has gone down as the per-pack rate has gone up.

One explanation? In New Hampshire, a pack of smokes has a tax of only $0.80, far less than Maine's current tax. Moody explains in a two-page issue brief (PDF).