SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 2 (LID) – A campaign begun Thursday to raise California’s excise tax on tobacco to help bankroll research on lung cancer and other tobacco-related diseases and fund smoking prevention programs.

Proposition 29 seeks to raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack, to $1.87, with equivalent increase on other tobacco products. In addition, dealers would face a distribution tax on inventories of cigarettes, at the rate of fifty mills ($0.050) for each cigarette, which is about $2 per pack.