It is not the kind of news we expect to hear about a place like Arizona but the even though it is far from the first state to consider it, legislators there are discussing the possibility of introducing an electronic cigarette tax to help the state cover its budget. No details have been divulged yet on huge the tax might be, but it certainly won’t be enough to make much of a dent on the state’s supposed $1 billion budget deficit expected to hit in 2017.

The decision, if taken ahead, would make Arizona the third state to implement such a tax. Minnesota enacted a 95% tax on e-cigs a while back. The benefit of such a move by the government is seen as a positive move by the law makers but as the benefits of such a high tax will help fill the needed gaps. However, the decision is not much in favor of people who use e-cigs. It will only sends e-cig users back to smoking traditional cigarettes.

Arizona Representative John Kavanagh also argued that a tax on e-cigs and related products might discourage people from using them to quit smoking. Many public health experts are also worried about the issue when it comes to tightening regulation of e-cigs. As of now, it doesn’t appear that legislators have attempted to argue that a tax on these products is also an indirect attempt to protect the public, which is an argument made regularly elsewhere.

New Jersey politicians looked at doing something similar earlier this year. At the time, they argued it was to protect the public from products not many people know about. Yet this doesn’t hold true in case of e cigs, which are smokeless cigarettes, as they have become popular and have also been well-received by the public. Therefore, it is quite evident that the proposal existed only to increase the state’s income. The e-cig measure was eventually dropped.

At the moment, Arizona’s only restriction on e-cigs is to keep them from being sold to teens. According to the state’s Attorney General, the Smoke Free Arizona Act does not currently apply to e-cigs.