Lawmakers are considering harsher penalties for smuggling cigarettes into Maryland, a crime the state’s comptroller says needs a stronger deterrent.

The stricter measures would help prevent the state from losing revenue, as well as help keep contraband cigarettes from being sold to young people, according to Comptroller Peter Franchot, who requested the legislature consider the proposal.

“The state is losing a substantial amount of much-needed revenue as a result of cigarette smuggling and the associated tax loss,” Franchot said in a statement Monday. “The minor penalties currently imposed for being caught smuggling do nothing to deter criminals from continuing to blatantly break the law.”

Maryland law currently allows for two packs of cigarettes to be brought into the state at a time. Beyond that, there is a fine of as much as $50 for each untaxed cigarette carton or package of other tobacco; offenders also could face as many as two years in prison.

A bill passed by the House of Delegates last month raises the fine for each carton or package to $150 for a first offense and $300 for each subsequent violation. Each violation also would be punishable by as many as two years in prison, according to the bill.

The exemption would be increased from two packages to one carton, according to the bill.

With just a week left in this year’s General Assembly session, Franchot urged the Senate to pass the bill as well.

The Senate Budget & Taxation Committee had a hearing on the House bill on Thursday. A vote had not been scheduled as of Monday, and Sen. Edward Kasemeyer (D-Dist. 12) of Columbia, the committee chair, said he wasn’t sure what action the committee would take.

So far in fiscal 2012, the comptroller’s Field Enforcement Division has confiscated more than $1.5 million in contraband cigarettes. In fiscal 2011, agents confiscated nearly $1.2 million, according to Franchot’s office.

Differences in the tobacco tax from state to state can make smuggling a lucrative enterprise.

In September, prosecutors in Prince George’s County indicted nine people for buying cigarettes in Virginia, where the tax is 30 cents per pack, and transporting them into Maryland.

Those cigarettes likely would have been sold at substantial profit in states such as Maryland, where the tax is $2 per pack, or New York, where the tax is $4.35 per pack, officials said.

With smuggling busts yielding an average of 505 cigarette cartons, the increased penalties proposed in Franchot’s bill are likely to generate as much as $1.6 million per year in additional general fund revenues, but that number could drop if the penalties begin to deter smuggling, according to an analysis by the Department of Legislative Services.

Although higher penalties might deter some, they won’t address the root cause of smuggling, said Marc Kilmer, a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.

“Without the different tax rates on cigarettes, you wouldn’t see the smuggling,” Kilmer said. “It’s not like you see gallons of milk being smuggled from North Carolina to New York.”

Businesses in states with higher tax rates also can suffer, as customers start buying their tobacco across state lines, Kilmer said.