Maryland - leaning toward taxing moist snuff based on weight NOT price..

March 25, 2009 - Leaders in both houses of the General Assembly are backing a tax change on a product known as moist snuff that is being pushed by tobacco giant Philip Morris - and opposed by an unusual coalition of other tobacco interests (such as R.J. Reynolds and health advocates.

The measure would change the way the tins of moist snuff are taxed, from a 15 percent levy on the package's wholesale price to a 75 cent tax per ounce of tobacco. The state health department says that adjustment would benefit producers of higher-priced or "premium" snuff such as Skoal, while increasing the tax on "value" brands such as Grizzly, manufactured by Conwood Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc.

Maryland Senate Bill 825 - Moist Snuff - Taxation and Regulation.

Reference: Snuff makes strange bedfellows
Proposal to change taxes puts cancer society, R.J. Reynolds on same side by Gadi Dechter, baltimoresun.com. 3/25/2009; Maryland May Change Tax Formula on Chewing Tobacco, Convenience Store News, 1/26/2009.