Tobacco.org

• Study Links Decline in Heart Attacks to Smoking Bans 

A Mississippi State study released Monday [Nov. 9] shows a 27 percent decrease in heart attacks among Starkville residents since the city passed a smoking ban in 2006.

Researchers associated with the university report also are recommending a statewide public ban on smoking.

The study by Robert McMillen and Dr. Robert Collins shows fewer heart attacks being treated at the Oktibbeha County Hospital. It focused on Starkville residents in the three-year span after the ban became law, compared to three years prior.

McMillen is an assistant professor in the psychology department and researcher at MSU's nationally recognized Social Science Research Center; Collins is director of University Health Services.

Their findings are part of a larger SSRC evaluation of Mississippi communities that passed smoking bans in recent years. McMillen said the data shows Starkville benefitting medically from the smoking ban.

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• Miss. tobacco tax called unconstitutional 

A Mississippi company that sells tobacco products wants the state to stop collecting taxes on cigarettes sold at retail outlets outside the state.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Hinds County Chancery Court, the Corr-Williams Co. said a 2009 amendment to the state's tobacco tax policy that applies a $.0125-fee to cigarettes that pass through warehouses in the state violates the U.S. Constitution by applying an unfair burden on cigarettes sold through interstate commerce.

The lawsuit does not challenge the portion of the law that applies taxes to products sold in Mississippi.

Based in Pearl, the Corr-Williams company has warehouses in Columbia and Natchez.

Commonwealth Brands Inc., a Bowling Green, Ky.-based cigarette manufacturer that distributes its tobacco products through Mississippi, joined Corr-Williams in the lawsuit.

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• Home Smoking Rules Tend to Vary by Race 

Prohibiting tobacco use at home could reduce adolescent smoking rates, but the practice might be less common in black families than in white ones, a new study found.

“African-American homes have fewer full bans, and more people are allowed to smoke in those homes,” said Jessica Muilenburg, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of health promotion and behavior at the University of Georgia.

The study appears in the August issue of the journal Health Education & Behavior.

Researchers led by Muilenburg surveyed 4,296 Mississippi high school students about their smoking habits and home smoking rules. About three quarters of the teens surveyed were African-American; nearly one quarter were white.

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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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• 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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• Big Tobacco touts tax on little guys  

Big Tobacco wants Little Tobacco taxed more, saying it could mean $28 million more a year for a state budget already in danger of going up in smoke.

"Mississippi's leaving money on the table," said David Sutton, manager for media affairs for Altria Group, parent company of Philip Morris. "We're hoping the Legislature will turn its attention to this."

Sutton said these manufacturers enjoy a price advantage because of their nonparticipation in the state's 1997 tobacco settlement. Mississippi gets no health-care reimbursement for those cigarettes even though they are just as unhealthy, he said.

It costs those who did take part in the settlement about 50 cents per pack, he said. "We need to level the playing field."

Gov. Haley Barbour, a former lobbyist for Big Tobacco, agrees. In his budget proposal, he's included proposed tax increases on both smokeless tobacco and cigarette manufacturers who didn't participate in Mississippi's tobacco settlement.

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• Miss. cigarette tax rising for 1st time since '85  

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist long opposed to raising Mississippi's cigarette tax, relented Wednesday in the face of slumping budget revenues and signed the state's first increase in nearly a quarter century.

The state's 18-cents-a-pack excise tax hadn't changed since 1985. On Friday, it rises to 68 cents a pack.

Mississippi becomes the latest state to make smokers pay more to boost finances during a recession. Kentucky and Arkansas also enacted cigarette tax increases this year. In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to sign a $1 increase.

Barbour signed the legislation as Mississippi struggles with an estimated revenue shortfall of $400 million for the year that ends June 30.

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• Gov. Barbor Signs Off On Cigarette Tax Increase 

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist long opposed to raising Mississippi’s cigarette tax, has relented in the face of slumping budget revenues and signed the state’s first increase in nearly a quarter century.

Mississippi’s 18-cents-a-pack excise tax hadn’t changed since 1985 before Wednesday’s bill signing. On Friday, it goes up to 68 cents a pack.

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• Mississippi lawmakers approve cigarette tax hike  

Mississippi's Legislature has approved the first cigarette tax hike in two decades, voting to raise the tax by 50 cents a pack in a bid to reap millions of dollars in new budget revenues amid the nation's economic slump.

Gov. Haley Barbour, a former tobacco lobbyist who has had a change of heart, said Wednesday he would sign the tax increase into law.

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• Miss. governor wants more tobacco taxes considered 

Gov. Haley Barbour is asking lawmakers to pass a $90 million hospital tax and consider other ways to generate revenue from tobacco companies. . . .

Barbour says he won't veto a proposal to increase the cigarette excise tax from 18 cents to 68 cents a pack. But he says lawmakers should also change the way smokeless tobacco is taxed and put a larger tax on cigarettes made by companies that don't pay into the lawsuit settlement Mississippi reached with major tobacco companies in the 1990s.

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• Tobacco lawsuit dollars tracked 

Federal authorities who have been investigating judicial bribery cases in Mississippi are interested in the trail of money that leads from tobacco settlement expenses.

Dickie Scruggs, who pleaded guilty in two judicial bribery schemes, is cooperating with federal authorities. He earned $1 billion as chief negotiator of the tobacco settlement.

Scruggs' attorney, John Keker of San Francisco, denied federal authorities are exploring the matter.

Last week, a federal grand jury questioned witnesses regarding P.L. Blake, who earned $50 million from tobacco settlement expenses.

Five years ago, two attorneys, Alwyn Luckey and Bob Wilson, raised questions about some of those tobacco settlement expenses in their litigation against Scruggs, their former law partner.

Their attorney, Charlie Merkel of Clarksdale, said what they found in documents detailing the payments for tobacco settlement expenses was a veritable maze.

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• Miss. lawmaker promises cigarette tax compromise 

Mississippi House Ways and Means Chairman Percy Watson said Friday that he'll offer a cigarette tax compromise next week that "the Senate will have a hard time rejecting."

Watson, a Hattiesburg Democrat, said he's still working on the plan and didn't disclose any details.

However, he did say the House wants to find a long-term solution to the declining balance in a state fund that gives drivers a discount when they buy or renew vehicle tags. The Senate has proposed directing a portion of the cigarette tax revenue to the fund for one year.

Negotiators from the House and Senate met Friday, but made little progress.

The House has passed a bill that increased the state's cigarette excise tax by $1. The Senate version was 49 cents.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour is recommending an increase of 24 cents

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• Tobacco Store Owners Feeling Pinch Of Tobacco Hike 

Mississippi tobacco stores are running inviting Arkansans to "drive a little and save a lot" just add to her anxiety, Walker said, because she feels customers are driving across the border to take them up on their offer of cheaper tobacco products.

Larry Cobb, retail operating supervisor of Forrest City-based Tobacco Superstores Inc. knows firsthand. His company owns some of the Mississippi tobacco outlets doing the advertising.

"We know that people have been doing it and are going to keep doing it," Cobb said. "I'm losing money in my stores in Arkansas. But if they're going to do it, I want them to go to my stores in Mississippi."

Arkansas' tobacco tax increased by 56 cents a pack March 1, and a correspondent hike in the levy on smokesless tobacco also went into effect as a result of Gov. Mike Beebe's successful push for the tax hikes to pay for a statewide trauma system and other health program in his $86 million health care package.

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• In This Asbestos Case, Plaintiffs May Get Burned 

Asbestos defendants often say they're the victims of a multibillion-dollar shakedown. A new case could prove they're right.

Asbestos defendants have complained for years that they are the victims of a multibillion-dollar shakedown. Now a Mississippi lawsuit makes that claim explicit: A Georgia company that paid out some $95 million in asbestos settlements has accused doctors, testing companies and as-yet unnamed plaintiff lawyers of participating in a racketeering scheme to gin up phony cases.

It's not the first time an asbestos defendant has accused the other side of fraud. . . .

Potential defendants include some of the most prominent names in the plaintiffs' bar, such as Baron & Budd; Motley Rice; Reaud, Morgan & Quinn and Brent Coon. Many are big supporters of the Democratic party and some participated in the multibillion-dollar tobacco settlement, raising the political stakes if the case proceeds.

The Mississippi lawsuit--two of them, actually, filed in state and federal court--names physicians including Dr. Jay T. Segarra, an Ocean Springs, Miss., radiologist who reportedly reviewed tens of thousands of X-rays over the years for evidence of asbestos injury. . . .

The Mississippi cases face an uphill fight, as lawyers and physicians have frequently cited confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege to refuse to turn over documents. But defendants have cracked the wall. An Ohio judge in 2007 booted the Novato, Calif., law firm of Brayton Purcell from an asbestos case after defendant Lorillard Tobacco Co. obtained e-mails and other documents suggesting the lawyers had made up information about their client.

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• BOBBY HARRISON:Cigarette tax loses momentum as stimulus expectations rise 

State legislators - both Republican and Democrat - appear to be licking their chops to get the stimulus funds to help with everything from Medicaid to education to highway construction.

Even Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who has made news nationally by saying he did not want to accept a portion of the funds, has made it clear that he intends to use a vast majority of the stimulus money dedicated for Mississippi.

With all eyes on the stimulus package, increasing the cigarette tax - once the dominant issue of the legislative session - has taken a back seat. . . .

In many ways, the Republicans' opposition to increasing the cigarette tax flies in the face of their often-stated belief in personal responsibility. Study after study reveals that smoking costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year through increased Medicaid costs.

Yet, Republicans have traditionally fought to keep the cigarette taxes low - in essence arguing that taxpayers should subsidize the health care costs of smokers.

Maybe, that's what former President Bush meant by "compassionate conservatism."

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