Cigarette tax would rise 65 cents under Iowa Senate bill

DES MOINES — A bill in the Iowa Legislature would increase taxes on tobacco products and implement an excise tax on vape and consumable hemp products as lawmakers aim to tackle the state’s rising cancer rates.

The taxes are part of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal to help lower rates of the disease in the state. In early February, an annual report conducted by the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health showed that Iowa continues to have the second-highest cancer rate in the United States, behind Kentucky, and is the only state with a rising rate. Rates of lung cancer are particularly high, according to the report’s preliminary data.

The bill, Senate Study Bill 3145, would raise the overall tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes by 65 cents from $1.36 to $2.01. It would also create a 15 percent excise tax on vapor and consumable hemp products.

Two of the three members of a Senate subcommittee advanced the legislation Tuesday to the full committee.

Advocates for cancer awareness and public health expressed support for the bill, pointing to studies showing that tobacco taxes are one of the most effective tools to lower cancer rates.

Jackie Cale, a government relations director for the American Cancer Society, said the state has fallen behind on its efforts to reduce cancer rates and recommended that Senate lawmakers increase the cigarette tax by $1.50 per pack to $2.86 per pack, as proposed in state Republican Rep. Brett Barker’s bill in the House.

“This bill would help nearly 10,000 Iowans who smoke quit, and it would also prevent roughly 2,500 youth from starting to use products altogether,” Cale said. “With Iowa's high cancer rates, we really should be a leader in the nation, taking evidence-based steps to reduce our rates.”

Iowa’s cigarette tax was last raised in 2007, going from 36 cents to $1.36 per pack.

Threase Harms, representing CAFE Iowa Citizen's Action Network, echoed Cale’s suggestion to raise the cigarette tax, adding that Iowa brought in roughly $140 million in tobacco and cigarette tax revenue in 2025 while the Iowa Medicaid program spent about $400 million to treat sick smokers.

In 2025, Iowa ranked 36th in the country for the rate of state cigarette excise tax, according to KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Representatives for tobacco companies took issue with the bill’s 50-percent wholesale tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes and snuff, arguing it would impose taxes on the products unevenly.

“You’re setting up a situation where the state’s in the position … (to) pick winners and losers on the back side,” David Scott, a lobbyist for Altria, a tobacco product company.

Republican state Sen. Kara Warme, of Ames, who chairs the Iowa Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said she is open to amendments on the bills and would consider the House bill increasing the cigarette tax.

The bill also includes appropriations from the Iowa health care trust fund.

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The legislation would make a $1 million appropriation to the Double Up Food Bucks program and $1 million to the Iowa Department of Justice to provide­ victim assistance grants to care providers providing services to ­victims of human trafficking.

Warme and Republican state Sen. Annette Sweeney, of Iowa Falls, signed off to advance the bill. Democratic Sen. Catelin Drey, of Sioux City, declined to do so and questioned whether the appropriation for human trafficking victim support was related to the rest of the legislation.

Reynolds’ tax increase proposal was included in a large health-related bill in the House but was amended out of the legislation during a House Health and Human Services Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Erin Murphy of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.