Tobacco.org

Mixed response to rise in tax on cigarettes 

As cigarette makers grapple with the increased excise on non-filter cigarettes, they fear a section of the consumers may migrate to cheaper alternatives.

"With the new excise, no manufacturer can produce a cigarette at the Rs 5-price point. So, consumers of non-filter cigarettes will be forced to migrate to cheaper tobacco products such as beedis, gutka and khaini, which are far more toxic," says Nita Kapoor, executive vice-president, marketing and corporate affairs, Godfrey Phillips India, which makes brands such as Four Square, Red & White and Jaisalmer.

Industry observers do not see an increase in the conversion rate of non-filter consumers to the filter version as most of them are price-sensitive.

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Liberals push for tobacco exit plan 

Liberals say they will try to bring the plight of beleaguered tobacco farmers to the floor of the House of Commons in Ottawa this week in an emergency debate.

Brant MP Lloyd St. Amand said his party will ask the speaker of the House to call a special session to discuss an exit program to help growers leave their shrinking industry.

Last week, St. Amand and Liberal Agriculture critic Wayne Easter successfully pushed through a motion in Parliament's agriculture advisory committee calling for the Conservative government to implement the buyout program put forward this spring by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board.

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EDITORIAL: What others think: N.D. should spend more to stop tobacco use 

Heidi Heitkamp was the attorney general who negotiated with big tobacco on our behalf. She and others want to increase the percentage of master settlement funds that actually have something to do with the problem of tobacco use.

They’ve come up with an initiative to force a change in the law. It’s been to the attorney general’s office for review and on to the secretary of state’s office. It went back to the initiators for final work and should be ready Monday for Secretary of State Al Jaeger to give final review and approval of the format of a petition to go out for signatures. The backers’ hope is that everything necessary will be accomplished so that the measure can be on the November ballot.

Heitkamp said that an average of $2.2 million of the payment to North Dakota each year is spent on programs dealing with tobacco use prevention or cessation. The proposal is to spend $9 million a year.

That doesn’t sound like much.

But $9 million annually is the amount the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculates this state should be spending.

Yes, at least that.

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• Targacept eligible for $500,000 milestone payment from GlaxoSmithKline 

Biopharmaceutical company Targacept Inc. said Monday it designated a lead compound in its smoking cessation program triggering $500,000 milestone payment from British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline Ltd.

Targacept is working to develop a new class of drugs known as neuronal nicotinic receptors (NNRs), a class of proteins in the nervous system that modulate the levels of key chemical messengers, such as dopamine, that are linked to nicotine's addictive effects.

In July 2007, Targacept and GlaxoSmithKline entered into a strategic alliance in which Targacept agreed to discover novel small molecule product candidates that target specified NNRs in five areas -- pain, smoking cessation, addiction, obesity and Parkinsons disease.

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Targacept reaches anti-smoking milestone  

Targacept has announced a leading compound in its effort to develop a smoking-cessation treatment program, the company has announced.

The milestone for the Winston-Salem-based biotech, which was spun out of research into how nicotine interacts with the brain begun by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., triggers a $500,000 payment from Targacept's development partner GlaxoSmithKline.

Targacept said in an announcement that the focus of its anti-smoking efforts is on counteracting the addictive nature of nicotine by manipulating "neuronal nicotinic receptors" or NNRs, which are proteins in the nervous system that control the levels of key chemical messengers.

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Proposed tougher smoking laws have some Richardson businesses worried 

But in the next few months, this taste of Middle Eastern tradition could disappear as Richardson leaders consider a tough new smoking ordinance.

So, too, would people's ability to legally smoke a cigarette while sipping a beer at Main Street Liquid Co., shooting pool at Fox & Hound or knocking down pins at AMF Richardson Lanes. . . .

City Council members will discuss the proposal again tonight. The earliest a vote on the smoking ordinance could be held is May 12. If passed, it would go into effect 90 days later.

Last week, four of the seven council members said they wanted to cut the list of exempted businesses to just one: tobacco retailers.

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Cigarette Dispute Leads To Fatal Shooting  

Baltimore City police continued Monday to search for the culprit in a fatal shooting that witnesses blamed on a cigarette dispute.

Dawn Shipley, 29, was shot and killed just after midnight Saturday in southwest Baltimore, according to investigators.

She had gone out to buy a pack of cigarettes for her boyfriend, and witnesses told police that a man with a revolver demanded a cigarette from Shipley.

Shipley declined and was shot in the neck.

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Woman Killed Who Refused To Give Man Cigarette 

Baltimore police are searching for a brazen killer.

Mary Bubala reports the man walked up to a couple and asked for a cigarette. When they refused, he killed the woman in cold blood.

The devastated family held a vigil Sunday night for the woman who held her ground and paid the ultimate price.

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Modibbo sets up c'ttee to enforce ban on smoking in public places 

MINISTER of the Federal Capital Territory Administration {FCTA}, Dr. Aliyu Modibbo Umar has set-up a Committee for effectively enforce the ban on smoking in public places in the Federal Capital Territory with effect from June 1, 2008.

Disclosing this in Abuja Thursday, the minister who noted that the FCT Executive Committee at its last meeting endorsed the composition for the smooth implementation of the ban, said that anti-smoking law was already in existence as an Act which the FCT Administration would conveniently exploit to sanction offenders when prosecuted at the court of law.

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Dairy owners choke the smoke  

The owners of Kaitaia's VIP Dairy boast theirs is the first dairy in the area to go smokefree - now all they have to do is kick the habit themselves.

Sheryl Stankovich and Ham Petera have lost money since banning tobacco, filters, lighters, matches and papers from their shelves. But they don't care. "We decided that we didn't want to be responsible for putting smoke into the lungs of our community," said Stankovich. "We are trying to be socially responsible."

The couple hated dealing with underage youngsters trying to buy tobacco for themselves or their parents and felt bad about contributing to Northland's problems with smoking-related diseases.

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• SUNLEY: Favoured tax treatment will boost sales of bidis 

Recent news that the government is planning to reduce tobacco cultivation by half over 10 years is an important development. However, because this proposal would lead to an increase in tax on cigarettes but not on bidis, it would have limited health benefit. Taking into account the health risks of each, bidis are under-taxed.

India’s market for smoked tobacco is dominated by bidis, around 10 bidis are consumed for each cigarette. Far more Indians die from smoking bidis than from cigarettes. Increasing tobacco prices through higher taxes is the most effective method of reducing tobacco use, but continuing to maintain low taxes on bidis will not substantially reduce tobacco consumption or improve the public’s health.

Despite the harm caused by bidis, taxes on bidis are currently just one-twelfth the tax levied on non-filter micro cigarettes, low-priced cigarettes most likely to be purchased by the poor, and are just 2% of the tax on more expensive standard filter cigarettes. As a result, bidis represent less than 6% of India’s total tobacco excise revenues despite making up the vast majority of tobacco smoked.

This favoured tax treatment increases the use of bidis. . . .

Excise taxes should be hiked for all tobacco products. Ultimately there should be a single tax rate for all cigarettes that is set higher than the current rate for standard filter cigarettes. Over several years, the tax on bidis should be raised to the uniform rate for all cigarettes. . . .

However, if the poor bidi smoker reduces his consumption of tobacco, wouldn’t he and his family be better off? The government surely has better ways of helping the poor than providing cheap tobacco products.

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LETTER: Smoking and a Shorter Life 

It was no surprise that a recent report by Harvard researchers identified smoking as a major contributor to why women in parts of the United States can expect to live shorter lives than their mothers. Cigarette companies have been taking aim at women and girls for decades.

As Majid Ezzati, one of the report's authors, suggests, this life expectancy disparity must be addressed through public health strategies.

The American Lung Association strongly believes that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, now pending in Congress, is a public health priority.

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LETTERS: Voice of the People 

Manhattan: Re "Cigs to hit $9 a pack" (April 1): The real cost of smoking is not the pack price, but the loss of thousands of New Yorkers to strokes, hearts attacks and cancer. . . .

A $1.50 tax increase would reduce the number of adult smokers by more than 150,000 and prevent more than 50,000 early deaths statewide. Thousands of kids would quit smoking as a result of high cigarette prices, and thousands more would never start.

--Sarah B. Perl, assistant commissioner Bureau of Tobacco Control N.Y.C. Department of Health & Mental Hygiene

Graydon Carter doesn't light up in front of Mayor Bloomberg 

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter taunted Hizzoner Michael Bloomberg with a cigarette at his annual dinner for the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday. But while the noted smoking advocate brandished the cancer stick and stuck it in his mouth, he stopped short of violating the law and lighting up in the rotunda of the State Supreme Courthouse on Centre St.

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Woman clings to life in Chinatown fire horror 

A Chinatown woman was battling for life after firefighters pulled her out of her burning high-rise apartment, officials said.

The 59-year-old woman was asleep in her 10th-floor apartment in Knickerbocker Village on Monroe St. when a fire ignited at 3:45 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. . . .

Fire marshals believe the blaze ignited after the woman's lit cigarette fell on paper products on the living room floor.

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