Now legislators are looking to almost double the tax over the next three years.

Under a bill passed by the Senate and being considered by the House, the tobacco tax would go from the 7 cents per cigarette up to 9 cents next summer, or $1.80 per pack. Increases over the next two years would put the tax at 11 cents per cigarette, or $2.20 per pack, in 2007 and 13 cents per cigarette, or $2.60 per pack, in 2008.

The end result would be today's $5 pack of cigarettes costing $6.20 in three years.

If that figure seems prohibitively expensive, it's meant to be.

"The reason that a number of states have adopted this as a strategy is because they've seen how they've been able to keep people from smoking and encourage people to give up the habit," said Sen. Rosalyn Baker, D-5th (W. Maui, S. Maui), author of the bill and chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health.

In recent years, legislatures across the nation have looked to taxes on cigarettes to help smokers quit and to prevent would-be smokers from taking their first puff.

Money from the new Hawai'i tax would be distributed to the state's general fund, as well as prevention programs — with 50 percent going to the Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund.

Even tobacco-producing states have begun to follow suit, with Virginia lawmakers last year upping that state's tax from 2.5 cents to 30 cents per pack over two years and Kentucky's lawmakers this month approving an increase of their state's tax from 3 cents — the lowest in the nation — to 27 cents per pack.

Bertrand Kobayashi of the American Lung Association of Hawai'i said that, if enacted into law, this year's bill would make Hawai'i's tax rate on cigarettes the fourth-highest in the nation.

While public education is important to preventing smoking, it is less effective than raising the price of cigarettes because education can reach only a few people who may or may not be inclined to quit, Kobayashi said.

"But the price of cigarettes affects all smokers, not just those who happen to hear the public health message," he said.

Rep. Bud Stonebraker, R-17th (Hawai'i Kai, Kalama Valley), said he worries that increasing taxes might have an unexpected consequence of sending smokers to black-market cigarette sellers.