Veteran tobacco lobbyist Bobby McBride knows he'll be spending a lot of time early next year trying to convince state legislators to kill an attempt to raise taxes on cigarettes.

"I've represented tobacco companies for 20 some years and every year I've been here, there's been a bill to raise tobacco taxes," McBride said in an interview this week. "We're always the whipping boy."

But this year, facing a deficit currently estimated at $650 million, the state might be cracking its whip harder than usual.

Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, has said he will introduce a bill to raise cigarette taxes by $1 dollar a pack.

Currently, the excise tax on cigarettes amounts to 91 cents a pack in New Mexico, less than 29 other states according to a chart on the National Conference of State Legislatures Web site, updated this month. If New Mexico raises its tax by a dollar, the state would have the 15th highest tax of any state. The highest is Rhode Island at $3.46 a pack and the lowest is South Carolina at 7 cents a pack.

On Friday, the price of a regular pack of Marlboros — advertised as a special — was $4.34 at Allsup's and $4.87 at Walgreens. At Tobacco Mart of Española — which advertises tax-free cigarettes — the price of Marlboro regulars was $4.45, while a carton of 10 was $40.90.

Traci Cadigan, chief lobbyist for the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, said Friday that raising the cigarette tax will have a good impact on the fiscal health of the state and the physical state of young people. "First of all, it's going to prevent kids from starting to smoke," she said. "Secondly, it's a recurring revenue stream for the state."

She estimated the tax increase would bring in $30 million to the state.

However, Ruben Baca, state executive and lobbyist for the New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Association, said he's skeptical that the state would get all that new tax revenue.

"You're going to drive more people to get their cigarettes on Indian reservations and over the Internet," he said, listing two sources of smokes where state taxes aren't collected. Referring to gas stations that sell cigarettes, Baca said, "My people are going to be hurt. The last time the state raised the tax on cigarettes, we lost about 15 percent of our business. Small businesses are going to be hurt."

The last time the state raised the tax on cigarettes was in 2003. "It was close," recalled McBride, who fought the measure. The bill passed the House by four votes. About half of the funds from that increase went into the state's general fund. The rest was earmarked for backing bonds to help finance the expansion of The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center and its cancer research center and for improvements to various Department of Health facilities.

Although Cadigan and Baca are on opposite sides of the issue, both said Friday there's a good chance a tax increase on cigarettes could pass next year.

A poll — commissioned before last month's special session by New Mexico Education Partners, which includes teachers unions and other professional educator organizations — showed 70 percent of the 400 registered voters surveyed support increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol products to increase revenues for public schools. In that poll, only 27 percent oppose the idea of increasing such taxes. The poll was conducted by Research & Polling of Albuquerque and has a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Cadigan pointed to a January 2009 poll by the same company that showed 57 percent of smokers surveyed support a tax increase. The question in that poll, however, asked if the respondent supported or opposed the $1 per pack increase "with part of the revenue dedicated to a program to reduce tobacco use, particularly among kids, and another part of the revenue dedicated to addressing the state budget deficit?"

Both McBride and Baca said they believe it's not fair to single out some businesses to tax and not others.

"What they should do is raise the gross receipts tax on everything, add a sunset clause, balance the budget and go back" to the tax level before such an increase, McBride said.

If legislators raise cigarette taxes next year, it would be a slap to an industry that's been a reliable source for campaign contributions to legislators and other state officials.

Last year, according to the National Institute on Money in State Government, the tobacco industry dropped more than $96,000 into the campaign coffers of candidates for state office in New Mexico.

The most generous contributor among cigarette companies by far was Altria, the corporate parent of Phillip Morris, which gave more than $51,000 to New Mexico politicians. Next was Reynolds American, which contributed just under $15,000.

Big tobacco spent even more on New Mexico campaigns in 2006, the last year in which there was a governor's race. That year, New Mexico candidates got $113,800 in contributions from the tobacco industry. Of that, $44,000 went to Gov. Bill Richardson's re-election campaign.

The state in recent years has looked at the tobacco industry as a way of funding the state budget. In 2003 the Legislature passed a bill that transferred the body of the Tobacco Permanent Fund — money from a national settlement with the tobacco industry — into the state's reserves. That bill also specified that for four years, income from the tobacco fund went to the general fund. Richardson had wanted to dismantle the tobacco fund — which was used for anti-smoking education — altogether.

Earlier this year, the Legislature voted to divert the tobacco settlement funds — estimated at $40 million to $48 million a year — to the general fund, earmarked for health and education programs, said Linda Siegle, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at roundhouseroundup.com