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Franklin County area smokers fired up about cigar tax  

The struggling state coffers will burden smokers to get more revenue.

Little cigars -- the ones that come with filters in sweet flavors and look like cigarettes -- will more than double in price because of the state budget crisis.

Beginning Nov. 1, the cigars will cost an additional $1.60 per pack. The price will jump from 99 cents a pack to $2.59. At the same time, the price of cigarettes will go up an additional 25 cents.

"They need to start picking on the drinkers for a change, and not just the smokers," said Melody Hopkins, manager of Puff N Snuff, Chambersburg. "There's not a lot of people who would die because you light up on the road, but a lot of people die when you drink and drive."

The state tax on small cigars was only recently passed. It equals about 8 cents per stick.

"There were some proposals that involved all cigars and smokeless tobacco, but the one that passed was for small cigars," said Wendy Lewis, budget analysis for the Democratic House Committee on Appropriations in Harrisburg.

Currently there is no tax on small cigars.

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Senate to vote on smoking resolution  

After the Student Senate meeting Sunday night, smokers might have to go farther from campus buildings to light up, due to the smoke-free resolution that will be voted on.

The resolution states that students must be at least 20 feet away from all buildings in order to smoke.

Student Senate President JoEllen Flanagan said the resolution came up about three weeks ago.

Sophomore Samantha Goode, director of Health Services for Student Senate, is involved with Community Alliances for Smoke-Free Environments (C.A.S.E) and originally sponsored the resolution. Goode did not respond to e-mails and phone calls from the Index requesting comment. C.A.S.E. provided Goode with a majority of the statistics in the resolution, Flanagan said. Student Affairs chair Senior Kristyn Potter now sponsors the resolution.

Smoking won't be banned altogether, but there will be more specific rules regarding where smoking is prohibited on campus.

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SGA senators debate what to do about students who ignore designated smoking areas 

The Student Government Association talked about the campuswide smoking ban and controversy surrounding the designated smoking areas on Wednesday evening.

Since the implementation of Ball State University's partial ban in March, there have been many issues between smokers and non-smokers, said various senators.

At the weekly meeting, Senator Daniel Willart stressed the importance of getting in touch with the people in charge of enforcing the smoking areas and handing out citations.

"We need to find out what's being done to combat the growing problem of people smoking outside the designated areas," Willart said.

SGA will try to emphasize awareness of the smoking areas around campus to reduce the number of citations handed out, he said.

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Atlantic City may vote next week on casino smoking policy 

The city official who was among the most vocal supporters of a resort-wide smoking ban now wants it off the table.

Calling it a restriction is really more accurate. No matter what local lawmakers decide, certain casino lounges likely could continue to allow smoking, Councilman Bruce Ward said Wednesday.

"Smoking is outlawed in every workplace in New Jersey except casinos," he said.

City Council likely will vote next week on exactly how to limit lighting up on casino floors, according to Councilman Dennis Mason.

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Reynolds American 3Q profit jumps 72 percent 

Cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc. said Thursday despite selling fewer cigarettes, its profit surged 72 percent from last year's third-quarter, when charges from trademark impairment and restructuring dampened its earnings.

Tax increases and the tough economy took 11 percent out of the volume of cigarettes shipped by the maker of Camel, Pall Mall and Natural American Spirit. But the nation's second-biggest cigarette company raised its full-year profit outlook based in part on its quarterly performance.

Reynolds American earned $362 million, or $1.24 per share, for the period that ended Sept. 30. That's up from $211 million, or 72 cents per share, a year earlier.

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澳门控烟法12月交立法会审议 倡增加3倍烟草税 

中新网10月22日电 据澳门日报报道，澳门行政会发言人唐志坚表示，行政会基本完成修订吸烟的预防及限制制度法案的讨论，稍后将进一步检视条文，以及听取相关执行部门的意见，预计法案最迟可于今年12月上旬交到立法会审议。

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控烟立法向百姓"借智" 电梯网吧拟纳入禁烟范围 

上海立法控烟激起全社会的热议，很多老百姓都开动脑筋踊跃支招，而昨天提交市十三届人大常委会十四次会议二审的《上海市公共场所控制吸烟条例（草案）》（修改稿）就采纳了不少来自老百姓的建言。

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• No lighting up, even on sidewalk?  

Jarred Postell, a smoker, says he thinks people should be allowed to smoke outside, so he doesn't support the idea of a ban on lighting up on a section of Elizabeth Avenue.

When N.C. restaurants and bars go smoke-free at the start of 2010, smokers might find another place they aren't welcome: part of Elizabeth Avenue and its sidewalks.

Central Piedmont Community College campuses are going tobacco-free next year, and the school asked the city of Charlotte to ban smoking on Elizabeth Avenue from Kings Drive to Charlottetown Avenue, where it bisects its central campus.

If the City Council approves the ban, Charlotte would be among the first cities in the country to ban smoking on a city sidewalk or street.

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Philip Morris, Reynolds Beat Profit Estimates on Higher Prices  

Philip Morris International Inc., the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company, and Reynolds American Inc. reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as higher prices offset shipment declines.

Philip Morris, based in New York, said earnings dropped to 93 cents a share, topping the 91-cent average of 13 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Reynolds, the second-largest U.S. tobacco company, reported earnings, excluding some items, of $1.24 a share, compared with $1.17 expected by 11 analysts.

Both companies increased their 2009 earnings forecasts. Philip Morris, which gets all of its revenue outside the U.S., used pricing to counter a 2.9 percent drop in cigarette shipments and revenue declines tied to foreign exchange rates. Reynolds, the Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based maker of Camel cigarettes, boosted prices earlier this year before the U.S. government increased taxes by 62 cents a pack April 1.

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A Silver Lining Clings to Tobacco  

But the investor Warren Buffett has said that some apparently drooping businesses can deliver more puff than expected. He called such stocks cigar butts, and Altria could be one of them. . . .

Yet it wasn't all bad at Altria in the third quarter. Net revenue excluding excise taxes fell 11.3 percent in the cigarette segment -- less than the decline in volume, suggesting the company managed to raise average prices. Add in other businesses including UST, the chewing tobacco and snuff maker acquired by Altria this year, and the group managed to eke out a 1.7 percent overall increase in profit as net revenue excluding taxes slid just 0.5 percent in the quarter. Cost cutting helped, too.

Altria's stock currently trades at just under 10 times consensus estimates of 2010 earnings, slightly below Reynolds American's multiple, despite what some analysts view as a more powerful stable of products. Pricing power, especially at Marlboro, could surprise -- as could cost cutting and contributions by the smaller business units. It would be oddly fitting if the tobacco-dominated company did turn out to be one of Mr. Buffett's cigar butts.

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SHERRIER: Recession tip: How about we not villify tobacco companies? 

WARNING: Reading some news articles may make your head explode.

Tuesday, The Boston Globe reported, “The state’s high court said yesterday that cigarette maker Philip Morris USA may have to pay for diagnostic chest exams . . .

Have we given up on the whole “personal responsibility” thing?

Personally, I hate cigarettes. . . .

Remember, no one is forcing anyone to smoke.

As far as second-hand smoke…No one is forcing anyone to shop or eat at an establishment that allows smoking.

People make bad choices sometimes, but I’d rather be free to make a bad choice and suffer the consequences than be told how to live my life. . . .

I’m all for trying to convince smokers to stop. (I don’t want anyone to get lung cancer. Smokers, please think of your health!) But I’m not for making tobacco companies pay for other people’s choices.

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Form 8-K Current Report  

Third Quarter and Nine Months 2009 — At a Glance

• Adjusted EPS: third quarter at $1.24, down 3.9 percent; nine months at $3.54, up 0.6 percent

o Excludes non-cash trademark impairments in both years, and prior-year restructuring charges and gain from joint-venture termination

• Reported EPS: third quarter at $1.24, up 72.2 percent; nine months at $2.56, down 30.2 percent

• RAI increases 2009 guidance: Adjusted EPS range of $4.60 to $4.70

• R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company posts additional margin gains

• Conwood captures 29.9 percent share of moist-snuff market

• RAI again recognized as a leader in corporate sustainability

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Some plain talk on cash crisis  

Paterson, a former Senate Democratic leader, and Sampson clashed in public for the second time in just over a month. The Senate leader suggested that refinancing tobacco bonds could generate $500 million (that move, however, would add to long-term costs). Tobacco bonds are payments the state makes in return for up-front cash it received from federal tobacco lawsuit settlements.

Paterson called the idea a "non-starter" and, after the meeting, said the notion represented "phony revenues."

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• National tobacco case to be heard in Bangor  

Attorneys from around the country descended Wednesday on the federal courthouse in Bangor for a conference on a class-action lawsuit against the makers of light cigarettes.

It is the first multidistrict litigation case ever assigned to U.S. District Court in Bangor.

Multidistrict litigation, or MDL, is the label the federal judiciary gives cases filed against the same party or parties in federal courts around the nation. Once cases have been combined, a three-judge panel assigns them to one federal judge.

At least 20 lawsuits from around the country have been combined in Bangor. The MDL has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John Woodcock, who has not handled one since his appointment to the federal bench in 2003. Moreover, the original Maine case that led to the 20-case MDL is once again in the hands of Woodcock, whom the U.S. Supreme Court reversed last year.

In a 5-4 a split won by the court’s liberals, the justices ruled in December that smokers may use state consumer protection laws to sue cigarette makers for the way they promote “light” and “low tar” brands. . . .

No hearings in the case will be held until January or February. Once Woodcock rules on whether the facts in a landmark case upheld earlier this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit can be applied to the MDL case, his decision is expected to be appealed to the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. That decision also could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Newville weighs prohibiting tobacco products in parks 

Municipal parks are designed to provide a place where residents can take walks, play sports and enjoy green space and fresh air. And in the Borough of Newville, park air could get fresher.

Borough Council is expected to vote Tuesday on an ordinance prohibiting the use of tobacco products at Newville Community Park and the Newville Rails-to-Trails trailhead.

Council’s meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the borough building on West Street. Public comment will be accepted on the issue.

Borough officials said they have received complaints about the use of tobacco products near children using the park and the trailhead.

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