Tobacco.org

Tom Lyons: Partnering for profit with cigarette firms 

it struck me as funny when then-Speaker of the House Marco Rubio said, back when the tax bill was coming up for a vote, that though he was a staunchly anti-tax guy, he leaned toward voting for this one.

"I'm not against it if it's designed to get people to stop smoking," he explained.

Heck, that leaves me worried about the rich. Those who can't feel the pain of a little dollar-a-pack tax increase won't get the benefits of this tax-enforced social engineering. And why should the wealthy be left behind as state lawmakers save thousands of not-so-affluent Floridians from an early death?

Actually, the experts agree that most smokers who haven't already quit despite previous tax increases and decades of health warnings are mostly the solidly addicted who will not stop now, either. . . .

Florida, despite its stated anti-smoking efforts, is just becoming a bigger stakeholder in the tobacco industry. More than ever, state government will now share the industry's profit-hungry motive to keep cigarette sales legal and profitable.

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• Stressed, broke smokers struggle with habit  

For the Perrys and other smokers, the incentive to kick the habit has perhaps never been stronger. The economic downturn continues to wear on, and this spring smokers were hit with the largest federal tax increase ever on cigarettes.

But reason doesn't always rule out, says Dr. David Abrams, a clinical psychologist and executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy, which is part of the anti-smoking nonprofit American Legacy Foundation. "If anybody looked at the pros and cons and weighed the evidence, frankly, we shouldn’t have a single smoker in the country. But the brain's reward centers are very powerful, and they avoid logical reasoning. Seeking immediate pleasure is sometimes something you can’t stop yourself from doing."

But while experts do say they're seeing more interest in quitting, the support system is collapsing, as some states have exhausted funds for smoking-cessation programs that many smokers, especially lower-income folks, depend on when they decide to quit.

An estimated 45 million Americans smoke, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found last year that the U.S. smoking rate had dipped below 20 percent for the first time on record.

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FLEENOR: Higher cigarette taxes: unhealthy and unfair 

Nicholas Goldberg's "How and why taxes go up, in smoke" (June 14) reads more like press release from the anti-smoking lobby than an objective question-and-answer backgrounder: Smoking is bad and the state needs more money, therefore hiking the cigarette tax is good. If smokers quit, so much the better. It's a win-win!

Oh, if life were only so simple. . . .

An overarching theme of the article is that smoking is simply a bad thing. Yet we live in a diverse society in which tastes vary widely. For some, total bliss is a pack of Marlboros and a day at the monster truck show; for others, it's a bottle of Cabernet and a night at the opera. There is no reason one group should be subject to punitive taxes while the other is praised for its sophistication. . . .

It doesn't take a Nobel laureate to know what would happen if the cigarette tax were doubled or tripled. The marked rise in bootlegging would mitigate any health benefits of the hike. Moreover, as commerce migrates from the corner store to the street corner, youth access to tobacco products would probably increase.

A higher tax would also probably trigger a wave of cigarette thefts, a problem that has plagued the state in the wake of past tax hikes. The increase in such lawlessness coupled with the rise in the crimes traditionally associated with black markets -- murders from deals gone bad, gun battles over turf and so on -- would adversely affect smokers and nonsmokers alike.

Conclusion

There are no easy answers to California's budget woes. These problems have been building for decades. Perhaps it's time for citizens to fundamentally reappraise exactly what they want the state government to do and devise a fair and efficient tax system for collecting revenue. Hiking what is already one of the most unfair and disruptive taxes on the books will only increase the harm to smokers and nonsmokers alike.

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INB3 Report: Saving Revenue and Saving Lives 

The report contains four key elements:

* Updated country level estimates of the illicit cigarette market around the world, using2007 data or as close to 2007 as available;

* Evidence that higher income countries, where cigarettes are more expensive, have lower levels of cigarette smuggling than lower income countries, contrary to the tobacco industry claim that the overall level of smuggling is dependent on cigarette price;

* Evidence that the burden of cigarette smuggling falls disproportionately on low and middle income countries, where the majority of the world's tobacco users live; and

* Estimates of the number of lives saved and revenue gained globally in the future if smuggling were eliminated.

”How Eliminating the Global Illicit Cigarette Trade would Increase Tax Revenue and Save lives” (published by the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease)

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• Is your kid a smoker? Blame your demographic 

Whether your child becomes a smoker may be determined in part by the neighbourhood he or she grows up in, according to a new report by a Montreal-based research centre.

"We wanted to develop a better understanding of how neighbourhoods affect health," said Christiane Montpetit, who wrote the report for the Centre Léa-Roback, a research institute that focuses on the impact of social inequality on health.

Researchers at the centre analyzed about 20 different smoking related studies produced over the last decade and tried to draw conclusions about environmental factors that encourage or discourage tobacco use among youth.

Overall, adult Quebecers are smoking less, partly because of smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other public places. But 31 per cent of young people (age 20 to 24) in Quebec still smoke, and most start in their teens.

As with adult smoking, socio-economic status plays a role, in that a greater percentage of poor kids smoke. But an even stronger link seems to be the level of education of parents, the report notes. . . .

Montpetit acknowledged the report raises more questions than it answers, but it shows that strategies that target only the individual might not be an effective way to reduce smoking among teens.

"We all know that in certain neighbourhoods, often wealthier ones, it is considered shameful to be seen smoking. People actually hide when they smoke. ...Whereas if you live in a place where everyone smokes, it becomes a social activity," she said.

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Quitting smoking won't cost a packet  

Smokers are delaying plans to quit due to the stress of the recession and would even cut down on buying food and clothes before giving up cigarettes, according to a study presented at the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference in London last week. Here our expert looks at some of her patients' most common arguments for preferring to keep on puffing.

• I don't spend much on smoking and find it a good stress reliever.

• If you smoke 20 cigarettes a day, you're spending well over £2,000 a year on cigarettes. In the current economic climate, that is a big saving if you quit. Smoking is a dreadful way to relieve stress compared with exercise, yoga, fresh air or taking a fresh-air break from your desk.

The money you save from smoking would more than pay for massages, gym membership or a yoga and relaxation course.

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• An old familiar lifestyle is gone in a puff  

The new decision by Clark County's subsidized housing agency to ban smoking in some of its properties reflects Washington's successful crusade to drive down cigarette use.

But the heated disputes between smokers and nonsmokers in Richard's building, inflamed by the VHA's action, also reflect an awkward fact about Washington's anti-smoking campaign: it's been relatively unsuccessful among the poor.

Heavy smokers who live in Richard's building, Esther Short Commons on the west side of downtown Vancouver's Esther Short Park, said they'll do as smokers whose buildings go smoke-free have done for decades: move to another place as soon as they can.

But the continuing spread of no-smoking apartments is leaving smokers with a new worry.

Where can you smoke, if not in the projects?

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Nations can save lives and cut losses of billions of US dollars by deciding this week to work on a new international treaty to combat global trade in illicit tobacco products 

This week at a global health conference, health advocates are urging governments to start negotiations on a new international treaty to combat illicit trade in tobacco products.

Representatives of 147 countries are meeting at a global health conference in Bangkok June 30-July 6 2007 to implement the international tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of the World Health Organization (FCTC). One of the main agenda items of the conference will be the discussion of an expert report on combating the illicit tobacco trade.

“Nations serious about protecting the health and well-being of their people should take the illicit tobacco trade very seriously. Smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes are sold at lower prices than legal products, contributing to higher consumption and greater rates of smoking-related illness and death,” said Luk Joossens, Senior Policy Advisor of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA). “The illicit tobacco trade also deprives governments of billions of dollars of tax revenue reducing funding available for public health and other programs.”

The FCA – an international alliance of hundreds of tobacco control organisations - has estimated that, in 2006, the illicit cigarette trade accounted for 10.7% of total global trade or approximately 600 billion cigarettes sold worldwide. The yearly loss of revenue to governments - more than US$ 40 billion - represents a sum greater than the GDP of two-thirds of the World’s countries.

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• Developing world faces black market cigarette plague 

A growing global trade in black market cigarettes is killing tens of thousands of people a year, causing massive health problems and costing governments billions of pounds, a hard-hitting report warns today.

A staggering 657 billion cigarettes a year are sold illicitly by organised crime gangs, half of all tobacco sold in some countries is contraband, and £24.6bn in taxes are never paid, it says.

The report makes plain that, contrary to the tobacco industry's claims, cigarette smuggling is much more common and damaging in poorer countries. Inefficient law enforcement, lax border controls and corruption among police and government officials mean smugglers find it easier to move large consignments of stolen or counterfeit cigarettes into countries in the developing world. . . .

The report comes as representatives of governments gather in Geneva to negotiate the first worldwide protocol on illicit trade in tobacco products. Heavily backed by many EU countries, the treaty is expected to lead to co-ordinated global action to try to tackle the problem. Some African administrations are sceptical because they believe it will cost them money to implement, but campaigners say that they will actually make money by ultimately being able to increase the tax on legally sold cigarettes once the black market has been tackled.

The study, part-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been written by Martin Raw of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at Nottingham University, David Merriman of Illinois University in Chicago, Hana Ross of the American Cancer Society and Luk Joossens of the Brussels-based Framework Convention Alliance pro-treaty organisation. It is called "How eliminating the global illict cigarette trade would increase tax revenue and save lives".

"The burden of illicit trade falls mainly on lower-income countries", the study found.

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Conference Committee slashes Tobacco Control Program even more 

The Wisconsin Senate early Friday passed its version of a state budget that raises taxes on smokers by $300 million, then slashes a successful program by 55 percent that is reducing youth smoking and helping smokers quit.

The Wisconsin Senate early Friday passed its version of a state budget that raises taxes on smokers by $300 million, then slashes a successful program by 55 percent that is reducing youth smoking and helping smokers quit.

Budget negotiators had already cut the program 40 percent – eight times more than the average cut for state agencies and programs. In secret negotiations again last night, Democrats who control the Legislature slashed another $5 million, leaving the program at only one-tenth of what the Centers for Disease Control recommends.

“Lawmakers also want to cut a half billion dollars from Medicaid – and tobacco-related diseases are the single most expensive cost to the Medicaid program,” said Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of SmokeFree Wisconsin. “So cutting the program that reduces smoking is not logical. How that math works is a mystery.

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LETTER: The scourge of cigarettes  

My heart goes out to Michael Milliken, and the other individuals and families like him who try to get by on low wages. The working poor in this country are struggling and there is little relief right now.

If Mr. Milliken had done his homework before moving to New Hampshire he would have discovered that we have one of the most regressive tax structures in the United States. Lower income people are hit the hardest here. However, I do not have sympathy for his complaining about the cigarette taxes in the state of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has the lowest cigarette taxes in New England at $1.33 per pack. . . .

Few would argue that smoking cheaper cigarettes is more important than having low and moderate income children covered by health insurance. . . .

Cigarette butts are also the most littered item in the world, . . .

Carelessly tossed cigarettes can start forest fires, and fires related to smoking account for the greatest number of fire-related deaths . . .

It is too bad that many do not see that it is the addiction to cigarettes that brought disease and death into their lives in the first place.

To requote Mr. Milliken, "Live Free or Die."

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VIDEO: Low-Income Americans Will Be Hardest Hit by Smoking Tax 

The financial strain of the new increase in federal cigarette taxes will affect lower income Americans the most as they are much more likely to report they smoke than their higher income counterparts.

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CHECKO: Cigarette tax improves state’s health 

The Campaign for Sensible Tobacco Policy recommends increasing the $2 state cigarette tax by $1 per pack and using part of the income to fund smoking cessation services.

The $1 increase equals $54 million in new revenue. Many states are raising their cigarette taxes. Rhode Island raised its tax to $3.46 per pack. Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by 3 percent to 5 percent.

Congress raised the federal tax by 62 cents in April. State smoking telephone quit lines all over the country reported huge increases in use as a result.

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death . . .

The cigarette tax burden falls primarily on people who least can afford it. Isn't it time to use some of the smokers' tax dollars to help them quit?

Connecticut policymakers face many difficult decisions in today's tough economic times. The health, revenue and political benefits of the cigarette tax, make it an easy one.

Our leaders can improve the physical and fiscal health of the state by passing this critical public health measure, and get reimbursed for half of the Medicaid costs

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• Recession 'keeps smokers puffing' 

Many smokers are too stressed by the hard economic times to attempt to give up their habit, research suggests.

Almost a quarter (23%) of smokers quizzed by Ipsos Mori said they had put off plans to quit.

And 28% said they had simply been too stressed to make a successful attempt to quit in the last six months, blaming job and financial worries.

If reflected across the country it could mean more than two million people have delayed plans to quit.

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Stressed smokers 'delay quitting'  

Smokers are putting off quitting because they are stressed out by the economic downturn, according to a report.

With British people worrying about their job security, paying their bills and putting food on the table, almost a quarter of smokers (23%) said they are delaying plans to kick the habit, and 28% of them believe they have been too stressed to make a successful attempt to quit in the last six months.

Jennifer Percival, Tobacco Policy Advisor at the Royal College of Nursing, London, said: "This study shows that over two million people are delaying quit plans and exposing themselves to the harmful effects of smoking for longer than they need to. . . .

The Recession Relapser Study of 877 people, will be presented at the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference in London.

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