Tobacco.org

Mississippi to Auction 855,000 Cartons of Contraband Cigarettes 

Mississippi is planning to auction about 855,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes as early as September.

A new law allows the auditor's office and State Tax Commission to speed up sales and open the auction to out-of-state vendors.

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Lawmakers Pass Another Tobacco Tax 

After years of not raising taxes on cigarettes, yesterday Mississippi lawmakers approved the second cigarette tax hike this year. Even more surprising, Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist who vetoed raising the state's excise taxes numerous times in the past, said he would sign the bill into law.

After a long battle over the details, the Legislature pushed through this year's first cigarette tax increase in May, adding 50 cents to every pack of smokes sold in the state. It was the first such increase since 1985. Now, this second tax adds 25 cents to any cigarettes manufactured by companies that were not part of Mississippi's 1997 lawsuit against big tobacco, reports the Hattiesburg American.

Top lawmakers said the tax of 25 cents on cheaper cigarettes will generate about $8.8 million a year.

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Mississippi lawmakers pass 2nd cigarette tax this year  

Mississippi lawmakers late Monday approved the state's second cigarette excise tax increase of the year, and Gov. Haley Barbour said he will sign it into law.

The plan adds 25 cents a pack on cheaper cigarettes made by companies that did not participate in the state's 1997 settlement of a massive lawsuit against big tobacco firms. Barbour had asked legislators to approve the tax, which is set to take effect Wednesday.

The large companies have lobbied for the new fee on their competitors, saying the makers of cheap cigarettes have a financial advantage by not paying millions of dollars a year for the settlement.

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House, Senate OK new cig tax 

Meanwhile, the second cigarette tax increase of the year is to go into effect Wednesday. A bill that puts an additional 25-cent tax on cheaper cigarettes cleared both chambers late Monday and is headed to the governor, who plans to sign it into law.

A 50-cent hike on all cigarettes went into effect earlier this year. Barbour wanted more taxes on smaller companies not participating in the state's 1997 lawsuit settlement with larger manufacturers.

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EDITORIAL: Plug it: 'Little Tobacco' should be taxed equitably 

If not immediately, then sometime soon Mississippi legislators need to plug a hole that gives plug tobacco, other forms of tobacco and off-brand cigarettes an unfair pricing advantage.

Gov. Haley Barbour has said he might include supplemental tobacco fees in a special session call, perhaps this week. We won't know until the governor -- who has the power to control topics when lawmakers meet outside their regular dates -- prepares his letter setting the agenda. . . .

Altria, of course, wants the levies leveled in the name of price competitiveness. But lawmakers should add a fee to makers of nonsettling brands because it doesn't make sense to, in effect, subsidize cigarette companies inflicting the same amount of harm on the state's people but not paying a penny in damages.

As for tobacco in other forms -- snuff, dip, chewing and etc. -- Barbour wants to do what the federal government and several states have done -- shift to a weight-based tax method that more closely equates the tax on smokeless tobacco with smoking tobacco.

The overall revenue difference to the state would not be great. It's just a matter of equalization. And it should be done.

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Smokers may soon pay more for cheaper brand cigarettes in Mississippi 

Smokers who buy non-premium brand cigarettes would start paying an extra 43 cents a pack starting Wednesday in Mississippi under legislation approved in the opening hours today of a special session called to adopt a $6.01 billion state budget.

The state faces a shutdown of all but essential and constitutionally mandated services at midnight Wednesday unless legislators adopt a budget and it is signed by Gov. Haley Barbour.

The legislature adjourned June 3 without reaching agreement on a 2010 budget. That meant they could reconvene only at Barbour's call and on his terms. . . .

Mississippi received more than $1 billion in the 1990s and is due to get $100 million a year in perpetuity from big tobacco in settlement of a lawsuit filed by the state's attorney general.

Barbour has said that gives the smaller cigarette companies, who did not participate in the lawsuit, an unfair advantage, and they should have to pay a higher tax.

House members raised the 25-cent a pack tax proposal to 43 cents a pack and sent the measure to the Senate, where some members argued big tobacco was behind the proposed tax increase because it was losing market share to the smaller, cheaper tobacco companies.

"Don't you think that just kids are buying these cheap cigarettes," said Sen. Bob Dearing, D-Natchez.

"And don't you think kids aren't buying these expensive cigarettes."

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SALTER: NPM tax is a sop to Altria, Big Tobacco 

discussions of another cigarette tax hike this year - this time just on the tobacco manufacturing companies or "non-participating manufacturers," or NPMs, that weren't a party to the state's tobacco settlement - should come with a giant asterisk.

No one can explain that fact better than Brian Perry of Capstone Public Affairs, which represents Altria but does not lobby for it. Perry wrote in a recent blog entry the truth about this new tax on the NPMs. What's the truth? The truth is that this tax on the NPMs isn't about solving the state's revenue problems and it's not particularly about forcing cigarette makers to bear a portion of the state's public health care burden, either.

It's about market share. It's about making it more expensive for "cheap" cigarette companies (Little Tobacco) to compete with Altria and the other "Big Tobacco" companies who settled Mississippi's tobacco lawsuit in the 1990s. . . .

But if the state taxes NPMs for a portion of the state's public health care burden for paying to treat smoking-related illnesses for the poor - and it should levy that tax - lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour, who once represented the company that eventually became Altria (Philip Morris), should at least call that new NPM tax what it is - a political sop to Big Tobacco.

Altria didn't pay to advertise on behalf of taxing the NPMs because its executives are, well, altruistic.

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EDITORIAL: Smoking: It's getting tougher to puff  

A pack of cigarettes now is hitting over $4.50, the FDA will nag smokers more and smokers will be standing outside in the heat and cold to light up. Some smokers just might conclude that it's just not worth it. Hopefully, they will.

About a quarter of Mississippians smoke. The health care effects are not only costly personally, but to all Mississippians who pay for the care of smoking-related diseases. The goal of tobacco tax increases not only is revenue but to encourage people to quit and prevent youths from starting.

The cost of smoking is just too high, in dollars and in health.

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Lawmakers may target ‘small tobacco’ for more  

During the recently adjourned 2008 regular session, the Legislature approved and Gov. Haley Barbour signed into law a 50-cent-per-pack increase on cigarettes to 68 cents. It appears budget negotiators are now considering an additional tax increase on the small cigarette-manufacturing companies.

Some call them “generic” cigarettes. House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, calls them “rabbit tobacco” companies, though, he admits that rabbit tobacco is a particular brand and might not be an accurate description of the companies that might be subject to an additional tax.

Barbour calls them the non-participating cigarette manufacturers or NPMs. They are the smaller companies that were not parties to the lawsuit filed in the 1990s by then-Attorney General Mike Moore against the big tobacco companies and they were not part of the ultimate settlement.

This year the governor has advocated that the smaller companies pay an additional 43 cents per pack.

“The purpose is to require them to pay in the same amount as those cigarette companies that pay Mississippi more than $100 million annually under the tobacco settlement reached in the ’90s,” Barbour said earlier this year.

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Miss. lawmakers might consider additional cig tax  

Another new development: Negotiators said an additional tax might be considered on inexpensive cigarettes - on top of the 50-cent-a-pack increase that took effect on all cigarettes May 15.

Negotiators also said they want to give permission to the state auditor and Tax Commission to auction about a million packs of contraband cigarettes seized by federal and state agents in a raid several weeks ago. Officials estimated the auction could bring the state $5 million to $10 million.

Gov. Haley Barbour will call the full House and Senate back to the Capitol for a special session

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• Raids uncover cigarette network  

Four cigarette distribution and manufacturing companies have been raided, including one in north Mississippi, in the last two months as authorities continue a two-year investigation into an alleged tobacco black market.

Besides the Magnolia State, the black market network is believed to have ties to South Carolina and Kentucky, according to an FBI statement released Friday.

On May 26, a task force of federal, state and local law enforcement agents searched Global Distributing in Tupelo. The most recent raid was conducted Thursday at Holley Sales Group, a distribution company in Anderson, S.C. The FBI did not disclose what, if anything, was seized in those searches.

While the investigation has not yielded any arrests, "a number of subjects have been interviewed," the FBI statement said.

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EDITORIAL: Tobacco: Equalizing taxes logical step  

Critics of former tobacco lobbyist Gov. Haley Barbour's call to raise cigarette taxes on companies that didn't participate in the state's tobacco lawsuit settlement and change the way the state taxes smokeless tobacco claim he's doing so to help some of his old lobbying clients.

Those critics say Barbour's trying to "level the playing field" for companies that sell premium brand cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products - companies he once represented.

Quite frankly, that's an intriguing political allegation and one that non-participating tobacco manufacturers and discount tobacco sellers would be expected to make.

But the fact of the matter is that even if that political allegation is true - and this newspaper has no particular evidence to suggest that it is or isn't true - the assessment is the same: Big deal. . . .

Why shouldn't those companies pay their share of the freight toward the social costs of smoking?

From the standpoint of public health and from the standpoint of tobacco products as so-called "gateway" drugs - with smokeless tobacco products still marketed toward young people much in the way cigarettes were a generation or two ago - there should be no particular consideration afforded "market share" among the tobacco companies.

Lawmakers have given this segment of the state's tobacco lobby a free ride (or, at the very least, a reduced ride) for too long. Tobacco taxes should be equalized.

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• Barbour may seek more tobacco tax 

Gov. Haley Barbour said today that he may ask state lawmakers to consider putting more taxes on cigarettes if a special session is required to resolve disagreements over the budget.

But a key House leader said he doesn't believe there is enough support in that chamber for additional taxes on smaller manufacturers.

The state's 18-cent cigarette tax increased by 50 cents on May 15. Lawmakers did not distinguish between premium-brand cigarettes and those made by smaller manufacturers when they agreed to raise the tax.

Barbour, a Republican, says it is fair to put a higher tax on smaller companies that are not participating in the state's lawsuit settlement with larger tobacco companies. He also wants the state to change the way it taxes smokeless tobacco.

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New Mississippi Poll: Voters Strongly Support FDA Regulation of Tobacco Products 

A new statewide poll of registered voters finds that 62 percent of voters support Congress passing a bill to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco products. The U.S. Senate is expected to debate this issue next week, and Senators Cochran and Wicker will play a key role in determining whether Congress will finally pass this life-saving legislation.

"Senators Cochran and Wicker have a critical role to play in ensuring that strong FDA tobacco regulation is enacted into law," said Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Both Senators Cochran and Wicker were cosponsors of this legislation last year and we urge them to vote for the bill when it's on the floor this year."

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Picayune to meet on smoking ban 

PICAYUNE -- The Picayune City Council has scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday to discuss an anti-smoking ordinance.

Council members delayed action this past week on the ordinance, which undergone several changes since public hearings last fall. Council members and other city officials said they had not had time to review the latest versions.

The latest revisions addressed concerns with enforcement and required distances that smokers would need to be from the entrance of buildings.

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