JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Florida's lawmakers, facing a $2 billion budget deficit this year and perhaps an even bigger hole next year, may consider doing something they have not done in nearly 20 years: raise taxes.

One option under consideration is to raise taxes on something most people don't like and don't use: cigarettes.

The idea being floated is a 50-cent-per-pack increase, which would raise between $400 million and $500 million. With every drag, smokers would be putting money in the state's coffers.

Florida's 34-cent-per-pack cigarette tax was the fifth-lowest in the nation last year, according to the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

And because taxing smokers might encourage them to smoke less or quit, that could save the state health-care dollars.

"If the tax is there, they have the option of not smoking or smoking," non-smoker Sandra Hull-Richardson said. "I think it's just like everything else that we choose to purchase that has tax associated."

Robert Pausch has been smoking for 37 years. While he knows the dangers, he doesn't think smokers should be forced to foot the state's bill.

"So they're going to prey on people's addictions to cigarettes and make them pay the cost of their mismanagement of the budget," Pausch said. "Why not go to the government and say, 'You guys figure out what you're doing wrong, straighten it out at your end, so we don't have to keep paying for your mistakes.'"

Gov. Charlie Crist has shown a reluctance to support the proposed cigarette tax.

"I understand that we're in challenging times. But I'm still convinced, because of some creative ideas, that there can be ways to balance it without having to go there," Crist said.

Lobbyists for the tobacco industry are already gearing up to fight any increase in cigarette taxes.

"Now I just have to earn my pay," Guy Spearman, whose clients include Philip Morris, told the Orlando Sentinel.