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New numbers show that recent tobacco taxes in Arkansas aren't keeping smokers away.
Though a few might have stopped lighting up, those still in the game are paying more.
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Local activist J.R. Few gave a presentation recently at the second annual Action on Smoking and Health Wales' "Communicate, Collaborate, Celebrate" conference in Cardiff, Wales.
Speaking during the "Engaging Smokers" workshop, Few shared insight and successes from work as volunteer media coordinator for Tobacco Free Marion County between 2002-2009.
MAYODAN, N.C. – General Tobacco (GT) announced that it has appealed the interpretation of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) by the Superior Court of California. The company also answered a claim by Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel seeking payments from General Tobacco for products it sold before joining the MSA.
The continuing legal issue in both matters involves the fairness of the MSA which dictates that later market entrants, such as GT, have to pay the states substantially more than certain competitors pay.
J. Ronald Denman, GT executive vice president, said none of the largest cigarette companies, which were sued by the states for decades of misleading the public about the harms of tobacco products, paid anything for pre-MSA sales.
“In addition, to induce some of the oldest tobacco companies to join the MSA, the states agreed to yearly sales exemptions giving those companies hundreds of millions of dollars in free sales. GT was offered no such exemption and must pay the MSA for every sale made each year,” he said in a press release.
This upcoming fall new laws will go into effect concerning smoking on college campuses throughout the state.
A new Arkansas law will begin next August that makes it illegal for anyone to smoke on a state funded college campus.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge by a local tobacco manufacturer to an Arkansas law that increased its escrow payments to the Medicaid agency. The payments are required under a state law enacted pursuant to the settlement of the nationwide lawsuit by Medicaid agencies against tobacco manufacturers (the Master Settlement Agreement) (see Report No. 1033).
A campus-wide smoking ban goes into effect at UALR. The University made the decision to go smoke-free a year ago so students and staff had plenty of time to get ready for the change.
You can't miss the “no smoking” signs on UALR's campus. Chris Hardin just moved in. He says good luck to smokers claiming they don't know about the ban. "They can use that (as their excuse), but I'm not sure how well it will go," says Hardin.
Hardin is a junior transfer from a community college that banned smoking last year. He supports the ban. "Well, it's cool for me because I don't smoke, so it didn't bother me at all, but other people weren't too thrilled about it," he says. . . .
Don't try to get around the rule by smoking in your car. That's not allowed.
you can now add University of Arkansas at Little Rock to the list.
As faculty and students move in this weekend to start the new school year, smokers there are finding it will take a bit more legwork to be able to smoke.
Junior Justin Walker used to just come out through the doors of the school, walk 20 feet and light up a smoke with no problem. But starting Sunday that routine will change.
"When they first started talking about this I was gung-ho because I wasn't a smoker and then it passed and I've become a smoker and then a realize woops, this is not the greatest idea for me personally," he said.
The new policy bans smoking on all university property including its satellite campuses.
Attending the recent Arkansas Youth Leadership Initiative gave 14-year-old Emma Gist of Mountain Home insight into deceptive marketing. She said, "At the conference, I learned that the tobacco industry has saturated family and fashion magazines along with cartoons and children-rated movies to target minors, especially young women and girls."
Gist was impressed by one program, "When You Say NO To Tobacco, You Say YES To Life," where one report was reviewed -- "Deadly in Pink: Big Tobacco Steps Up Its Targeting of Women and Girls." That report and images of the tobacco marketing campaigns can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/deadlyinpink. The report represented a coalition of public health organizations, describing how the tobacco's campaigns target young women and girls.
In the past two years, two tobacco companies launched marketing campaigns that showed smoking as feminine and fashionable, trying to hide its harmful risks and addiction, she said
Members of a legislative subcommittee that is scouring Arkansas’ tobacco settlement proceeds for extra money took notice of a $3 million fund balance in the master’s degree program on addiction studies at the University Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
But a Pine Bluff lawmaker says the little-known degree program and 17 community and school grants the university oversees should not be raided for funds to pay for other health-related programs because they and other minority health initiatives funded with tobacco settlement money are addressing a major problem — disparities in health services.
“It’s shocking. If you look at access to health care, you look at the demographics and minority residents, especially in the Delta, minorities don’t have sufficient health care,” Rep. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, said last week after meeting of a joint subcommittee of the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees.
During the meeting, members carefully examined the budget of the state Health Department’s Smoking Prevention and Cessation Program’s budget looking for any excess funds that could be shifted to other health-related programs, such as adult drug courts. “I think that is the wrong direction,” Flowers said. . . .
One of the few programs of its kind in the country, director Jerry Lewis told lawmakers it prepares students for intervention, prevention and treatment of those with alcohol, tobacco, drug and gambling addictions. Students also learn how to manage addiction facilities.
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that an Arkansas tobacco liability law does not violate the Sherman Act, dealing Grand River Enterprises Six Nations Ltd. its latest setback in the cigarette maker's bid to depose state attorneys general in an antitrust case involving tobacco liability escrow money.
he director of the state Department of Health says anti-smoking programs are working with thousands of teenagers either quitting - or not starting to smoke.
Dr. Paul Halverson told state lawmakers Tuesday that 114,000 fewer Arkansans are smoking since the state starting funding anti-smoking programs 10 years ago.
The 8th Circuit affirmed dismissal of a Canadian cigarette maker's lawsuit accusing Arkansas of violating antitrust laws by levying fees on manufacturers based on how many cigarettes are sold there each year.
Grand River Enterprises Six Nations, along with a pair of wholesale distributors, sued Arkansas after it passed a law requiring certain manufacturers to make payments into an escrow account to offset future Medicaid costs related to smoking.
They alleged the so-called Allocable Share Amendment violated antitrust laws because it forced them to raise prices and prevented them from gaining a competitive advantage over other manufacturers and wholesalers.
"Although these payments may increase the cost of doing business in Arkansas, they do not amount to an antitrust injury," the St. Louis-based court ruled. The plaintiffs "have not proven that the Allocable Share Amendment amounts to a per se violation of the Sherman Act." . . .
Grand River was not a party to the original lawsuit or the subsequent agreement, and opted not to participate in the master agreement.
But the master agreement allows states - including Arkansas - to enact statutes forcing such non-participating manufacturers to place money into escrow each year to settle future judgments based on the number of cigarettes sold in that state.
A property-wide tobacco ban goes into effect today for Arkansas Tech University, university officials announced Friday.
Laura Rudolph, ATU Ozark Campus director of administrative services and public relations, said the buildings themselves went smoke-free several years ago when the state legislature passed a law prohibiting smoking in public buildings, but a policy change adopted by the ATU Board of Trustees on May 21 expands the policy to all property owned and operated by ATU. The university has campuses at Russellville and Ozark.
Arkansas Tobacco Control agents have periodically checked retail stores across the Missouri state line from Bella Vista since March 1, when Arkansas raised its cigarette tax by $5.60 per carton, but so far they've seen no smuggling of cigarettes.
"I've not seen anything that looked anywhere close to a misdemeanor or felony," Bill Holohan told Glenn Redding on Tuesday as the two Arkansas enforcement agents talked in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart Supercenter. "I haven't seen much tobacco come out at all."
"I don't think we've got much bootlegging going on," Redding replied, referring to the transportation of untaxed cigarettes. . . .
Redding notes that, with only eight agents, the state Tobacco Control Board is spread thin. Redding has 533 permitted retailers in his 13-county section of north Arkansas.
Looking for smugglers is only part of what he does. Redding also checks to make sure stores are operating legally and not selling tobacco below the minimum prices allowed by the state.
The Tobacco Control Board does compliance checks at each store at least once a year.
In April 2006, Governor Mike Huckabee convened a special session of the Arkansas General Assembly. Among the items addressed were school funding, a minimum wage increase and a statewide smoking ban.
The Arkansas Center for Health Improvement worked with a coalition of health advocates to support a clean indoor initiative. Two bills were presented and passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Huckabee. To read a summary of each Act, click on the links below.
Act 8 of 2006, An Act to Protect Workers in Arkansas from Secondhand Smoke in the Workplace; an Act to Protect the Citizens of Arkansas from Secondhand Smoke in Public Places; and for Other Purposes.
For more information about Act 8 of 2006: The Arkansas Clean Indoor Air Act, please log onto www.arcleanair.com
Act 13 of 2006, An Act to Protect Children Restrained in Child Passenger Safety Seats in Arkansas from Secondhand Smoke; and for Other Purposes.
To access the full text of the Acts, click on the links below Act 8 of 2006 (Senate Bill 19) Act 13 of 2006 (House Bill 1046)