By AP/KWMU
Jefferson City, MO – Tobacco companies are joining forces to try to defeat a tobacco tax increase on the November ballot in Missouri.
They have formed a group called Missourians Against Unfair Taxes, whose members include R.J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris, Lorillard, and Brown and Williamson.
The referendum will ask whether voters want to raise the cigarette tax from $0.17 to $0.72 cents a pack. The new money would go to health care treatment and anti-smoking efforts.
Other members of the group include U.S. Smokeless Tobacco, the Smokeless Tobacco Council, the Missouri Council for Burley Tobacco and the Missouri Wholesale
Distributors Association.