“Tax ’em if you got ’em.” That could be the motto of the California Legislature – about everything, but especially cigarettes.

In recent decades, politicians have been eager to increase levies on the demonized weed. The California Legislature’s Extraordinary Session on Health Care, called by Gov. Jerry Brown, has revived bills stalled earlier this year. The six major bills:

• SBX2-5/ABX2-6 absurdly would regulate tobacco-free inhalers (“vapes” or e-cigarettes) as if they were tobacco.

• SBX2-6/ABX2-7 would ban smoking in hotel lobbies, small businesses, break rooms and tobacco shops – violating owners’ property rights to decide what’s done in their establishments. Banning smoking in tobacco shops is another absurdity, like banning cars at race tracks.

• SBX2-7/ABX2-8 would boost the legal smoking age from 18 to 21, even though at 18 you can vote and volunteer to join the military.

• SBX2-8/ABX2-9 would ban tobacco use at schools and “on school or district property.” This would take away the discretion of local school boards, which already mostly ban smoking and force adult smokers to go off school property entirely to take smoke breaks. And no more smokin’ in the boys’ room!

• SBX2-9/ABX2-10 would let local governments jack up tobacco taxes.

• SBX2-10/ABX2-11 among other things would impose “a required fee of $1,000 for each location” selling tobacco.

In particular, the tax/fee increases could be dangerous for Californians by creating a larger black market in contraband smokes.

By far the highest state cigarette tax is in New York, $4.35 a pack, compared with 87 cents in California. New York City tacks on another $1.50 per pack. Total tax there: $5.85.

Along with other regulations and taxes, legal cigarettes cost as much as $14 a pack in New York City. That fact was given national attention in July 2014 with the death of Eric Garner, a black man choked by a white police officer. Garner was arrested for selling contraband cigarettes – something less likely to happen in places with more reasonable cigarette prices.

Generally, contraband cigarettes are transported from Virginia and other tobacco states with low taxes, often in the trunks of cars, then sold on the street or behind closed doors.

According to a 2014 study by the Tax Foundation, “New York is the highest net importer of smuggled cigarettes, totaling 56.9 percent of the total cigarette market in the state. … Smuggling in New York has risen sharply since 2006 (up 59 percent), as has the tax rate (up 190 percent).”

Of course, the state and city don’t collect taxes on smuggled smokes. And police used for prohibition enforcement aren’t available for fighting real crime. The New York Times reported in June: “Shootings in New York City have been rising for two straight years, the first time that has happened since the end of the 1990s.”

The situation in California isn’t nearly that bad, yet. At grocery stores, cigarettes sell for about $6.50 a pack, maybe a dollar less at tobacco stores.

But higher taxes here would push us in the direction of New York City, meaning more smuggling, more crime and less policing.

Moreover, even the modest increase of 50 cents from Prop. 10 in 1998, director Rob Reiner’s tax to fund the First 5 children’s programs, increased crime. According to a Tax Foundation study, “In the aftermath of the 1998 tax hikes, the Board of Equalization’s model showed that tax evasion surged 12 percent as sales of taxed cigarettes fell sharply.

“The federal General Accounting Office found that seizures of counterfeit cigarettes at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach had increased dramatically in the years following the tax hike.”

A new wave of tax increases and regulations would cause an even higher contraband surge, benefiting smugglers, gangs and even terrorists.

California already has the nation’s second-lowest rate of tobacco use, after Utah. It should leave higher taxes and other nannyism to the Big Apple.