Cigarette tax kicking butt

PITTSFIELD — Smokers felt the first burn of the state's new $1 tax increase on cigarettes yesterday.
"It's disgusting, people can't live today with all of these taxes, it's killing business," said a patron of A-Mart on North Street, who identified himself as "Stoney."
The statewide cigarette tax increase of $1 went into effect yesterday, after passage in the Legislature late Monday and Gov. Deval L. Patrick's signature yesterday.
In January, the average nationwide price of a pack of cigarettes was $4.25, as reported by a study tracking state cigarette prices, but in Massachusetts, an average pack cost $5.41.
With the total tax now at $2.51, Massachusetts now
Projections are that the tax hike will raise up to $174 million in revenues to help support the state's health insurance programs. Medical News Today, an online newsletter reported in February that the state's subsidized health insurance coverage could cost the state as much as $1.35 billion over the next several years.
"If they were smart, they would have the same tax that New Hampshire has," said Mark Parrott, manager of A-Mart in Pittsfield, where he was tagging new prices yesterday.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids reports that New Hampshire's cigarette tax is $1.08 per pack.
"They claim that they will raise $175 million with
this tax increase, but they will actually raise less, because they are not going to get the same number of consumers that they had before," said Parrott. "Some are going to quit smoking, and others are going to go to (buy in) other states."
For smokers, the cigarette tax adds to the increasing cost of gas and other commodities. But lawmakers hope the new tax will cause consumers to quit smoking.
But some smokers won't quit.
"Smoking is undoubtedly an addiction, in fact, it is more addictive than many more expensive drugs," said Emily Blanchard, community health worker for the Berkshire Area Health Education Center.
"Everyone has their own individual struggles, for one person it might be more difficult to quit than it would be for another person," she said.
During the month of June, the state was offering free two-week supplies of nicotine patches to individuals who called 1-800-trytostop. The program may continue depending on how successful it was, Blanchard told the Eagle.
Though Gloria Wilson feels the tax is too much, none of her friends seem upset by the increased tax, she said.
For many smokers, cigarettes use has been a part of their lifestyles since they were teenagers, said Wilson, a Pittsfield resident.
"I have smoked since I was 14," she said.
Pittsfield resident Anne Bishop, who was smoking a cigarette at a North Street park on Tuesday, said she's been smoking since she was in high school.
"I could quit if I wanted to, I have in the past, I could quit if they kept increasing the tax," Bishop said, but she indicated no intentions of quitting now.
She said cigarettes are not the products that should receive a tax increase.
"I think instead of increasing (the tax on) cigarettes, they should increase a liquor tax," Bishop said. "Drinking is more of a problem to quit, they should increase an alcohol tax. People drink, and then that makes them smoke more," she said.

Philip Morris presents at JP Morgan Global Tobacco Conference

NEW YORK - Philip Morris International Inc.’s (NYSE / Paris Euronext: PM) Chief Operating Officer André Calantzopoulos will address investors today at the JP Morgan Global Tobacco Conference at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London.
The presentation and Q&A session are being webcast live, in a listen-only mode, beginning at approximately 9:25 a.m. London Time. An archived copy of the webcast, together with selected slides, will be available on the same site until 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, July 18, 2008.
Highlights of the presentation include Philip Morris International’s (PMI) key brand strategies and an update on major market performances.
The presentation may contain projections of future results and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
PMI is subject to other risks detailed from time to time in its publicly filed documents, including the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2008. PMI cautions that the list of important factors is not complete and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that it may make.

Scottish city to offer smokers food vouchers in return for quitting cigarettes

LONDON — Authorities in a Scottish city are offering smokers food vouchers if they quit.

Health officials in Dundee say ex-smokers will be given $25 a week on an electronic card. The credits can be redeemed in stores for fresh food and groceries, but not alcohol or cigarettes.

Participants in the pilot program will get help giving up cigarettes and will have to undergo weekly carbon monoxide breath tests to prove they have not started again.

Authorities said Saturday that the project will start in the fall. They hope it can help 900 people quit smoking over the next two years.

Dundee is Scotland's fourth-largest city and has one of Britain's highest smoking rates.

Use tobacco money to balance budget

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki says he hopes legislators consider approving his plan that could raise $600 million to $775 million in revenue without increasing taxes to address the budget shortfall.

"These are extraordinary times, and Nevada needs to take extraordinary measures," Krolicki said Thursday by phone from Beijing, where he is heading a state trade mission.

Under his plan, the state would sell bonds and use the revenue to cover current debts. The bonds would be repaid from the annual payments the state receives from tobacco companies.

Nevada receives about $50 million a year from the tobacco industry to compensate for the medical costs to the state of tobacco-related illnesses.

"The situation is so dire now it makes sense to use tobacco securitization to balance the state budget," Krolicki said. "You can't nickel and dime your way out of a $1 billion budget shortfall."

Legislators next week are scheduled to go into a special session to cut $100 million to $200 million more in state spending because of falling tax revenues. Lawmakers and Gov. Jim Gibbons already have approved $914 million in cuts to the two-year budget that ends June 30, 2009.

Krolicki's plan isn't without its critics.

In a letter Wednesday to Gibbons, state Treasurer Kate Marshall said her office has been unable to secure the "working papers" on the assumptions Krolicki used to arrive at the estimated proceeds from his plan. If the Legislature considers the proposal, Marshall said, she wants to work with the attorney general "to determine the extent to which such action would put the state at risk of engaging in fiduciary failure."

Marshall also pointed out that Krolicki in 2003 told the Senate Committee on Government Affairs that a tobacco securitization plan would be a "tremendous fiduciary failure" and should not be used to "balance today's budget."

At the time, Krolicki was state treasurer.

Krolicki said that in earlier sessions he advocated legislators issue bonds against the tobacco money. But at the 2003 session, he said, he opposed the plan because "it is too expensive and the market is not right."

The situation has changed dramatically since 2003, Krolicki said, and the plan is needed because there is no guarantee Nevada will continue to receive money from the tobacco industry at current levels.

The tobacco money now is used to cover some of the expenses of the Millennium Scholarship and SeniorRx programs.

"It is one of the few options that can raise a considerable amount of money without raising taxes or substantially harming a considerable amount of people," Krolicki said.

Legislators and the governor are looking at ways to cut spending without laying off workers.

Krolicki said his plan is available on his Web site and in handouts he has distributed to the media. He said he proposed creation of a working group, which would include the treasurer, to review the plan before any bonds were sold.

"I would be pleased to work with her (Marshall) and show how the model works," he said. "She is making noise now in a nonconstructive way."

Since Marshall assumed his job in January 2007, the two have been at loggerheads.

Krolicki has been investigated by the Nevada Division of Investigation because of concerns Marshall raised over his handling of a college tuition program and office e-mail messages. No charges have been filed against him.

Uganda: Tobacco Firms Should Be Socially Responsible

I wish to draw attention to the damage tobacco growing has caused to the environment in West Nile, the North, Bunyoro and south-western Uganda.
Several acres of woodland have been felled for flue-cured tobacco production in Maracha, Arua, Koboko, Yumbe, Hoima, and Masindi districts. Forests that would otherwise have filtered carbon emissions and protected arable land from erosion are removed, and temperatures in the tobacco-growing districts are rising.
Firms like British American Tobacco, Leaf Tobacco and Commodity, as well as Continental, in their fallacy, give eucalyptus seedlings to farmers supposedly to replace chopped forests without considering the long maturity period and its impact on the water table.
The tobacco firms do not plough back their high profits yet they hype their cosmetic social responsibility programmes. South African Breweries' "Drive Arrive Campaign" resulted into 10% decline in road accident-related deaths in 1998. What have the tobacco companies done?
Apart from the trivial contribution through the mandatory 2000 Crop Ordinance that Arua enacted, tobacco companies have not done much for the community. Since tobacco growing is laborious and an all-year round activity, many food crops are foregone by tobacco farmers, which has caused food insecurity.
Besides, during peak seasons, students stay home harvesting tobacco, leading to poor academic performance and child labour. Tobacco companies have not trained farmers to invest their little earnings and this leaves them in a cyclical poverty trap.
The negative impact of tobacco growing includes the accumulation of chemical compounds in soils and declining fertility. Tobacco production negatively affects people's health. The effects include nicotine poisoning, pesticide exposure, respiratory effects, musculoskeletal and other injuries.
The Government should assist tobacco growers in West Nile to produce alternative crops that thrive well there without fertilisers or pesticides. The sh48b the Government gets in tax revenues from tobacco exports and products should not shroud the negative effects on tobacco on the population.

Wegmans, DeCicco Markets Ditch Cigarettes

Anti-smoking groups are praising Wegmans Food Markets and DeCicco Markets for discontinuing the sale of tobacco products at their stores.

The American Lung Association of New York State presented Wegmans with the Lung Champion Award to recognize the Rochester, N.Y.-based grocer’s January 2008 decision to stop the sale of such items at all 70 of its locations, which are in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.

“The American Lung Association of New York State commends Wegmans for its leadership in removing cigarettes from store shelves and putting the public health of its employees and customers above profits,” said Deborah Carioto, president of the organization. “Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in this country, and with the single act of halting tobacco sales in its stores, Wegmans has set what I hope will be a trend among major retailers in this country.”

Besides banning the sale of tobacco products, Wegmans now offers a quit-smoking program for its employees. It said 550 are currently enrolled.

“Wegmans believes that the many young people who work in our stores will be affected by the message the company they work for is willing to give up profits out of concern for their health,” said Wegmans vice president Mary Ellen Burris.

Pelham, N.Y.-based DeCicco Markets, with locations in both Westchester and Rockland counties, stopped selling tobacco products at five of its six grocery stores in February. The sixth location, which opened in Ardsley, N.Y. last year, has never carried tobacco products.

DeCicco was honored at the sixth annual “No Thanks, Big Tobacco” appreciation event sponsored by the Elmsford, N.Y.-based Tobacco Control Partners of the Lower Hudson Valley.

Stephens City Town Council approves tax on cigarettes

STEPHENS CITY — A pack of smokes will cost 25 cents more in town when a new tax adopted Tuesday takes effect.

The Town Council voted 6-1 at its regular meeting to approved an ordinance creating a 25-cent excise tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes. Mayor Ray Ewing, Vice Mayor Joy Shull and councilmen Ronald Bowers, John Hollis, Lindel Fravel Jr. and Micheal Grim voted to approve the ordinance on the final reading. Councilman John Harter gave the dissenting vote.

"There were enough people in this town that didn't like the idea, and somebody had to vote against it," Harter said, explaining his vote.

Bowers disagreed.

"I think it's a fair tax because you're putting it on an elected product," Bowers said.

Currently, four businesses within town limits sell cigarettes and would have to charge the tax. Sellers must display a cigarette stamp provided by the town. Taxes will be collected by the town treasurer. The tax per individual cigarette will be 1.25 cents, but the total revenue should be around $25,000, according to Town Manager Mike Kehoe.

In other business, the council:

* Adopted a resolution to address "Virginia's transportation funding crisis," by which the town supports the efforts of the governor and the General Assembly "to act swiftly and decisively to approve legislation that will address the transportation funding crisis at the statewide, regional and local levels."

The resolution also states that such legislation should include new tax and fee revenue, including tolls on new highways, to ensure safe roads, ease congestion, promote economic development and provide consumer choices.

* Held a public hearing on the proposed 2008-2009 budget. No one spoke during the hearing. The total budget is proposed at $1.45 million, compared to $1.66 million for the current fiscal year. The council scheduled a June 12 special meeting at which they plan to vote on the budget.

Also, the council approved a motion extending the deadline to pay real estate and personal property taxes to June 30. Bills were to be due Thursday.

* Voted unanimously to award a contract to American Disposal Inc. for refuse collection. The contract is for one year at $101,192. Evergreen Waste Inc. currently provides the service for nearly $90,000 but submitted a bid of $125,881 for the next year, the second-highest of three bids.

* Voted unanimously to adopt a resolution requesting that the Virginia Department of Transportation reduce the speed limit on U.S. 11 (Valley Pike), 0.95 miles south of the previous town limits, from 55 mph to 45 mph.

Smokes in literature

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Once upon a time, the smell of cigar smoke was thought to be delicious, arousing. In the proposal scene of Brontë's novel, Jane catches the whiff of Rochester's cigar - "I know it well" - in the garden at Thornfield. It mingles with "sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose". With the heroine giddy on these blended scents, only one outcome is possible.
Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
It was also thought that clever people smoked, and became cleverer when they did so. Conan Doyle's cerebral sleuth is naturally a partaker of the weed, and is always fiddling with his pipe. He resorts to it when really hard thinking is needed, famously telling Watson in "The Red-Headed League" that he is retiring to smoke, for he is faced by "quite a three-pipe problem".
Bartholomew Fair, by Ben Jonson
There are (slightly) earlier examples of smoking in English drama, but Jonson's comedy of urban misrule (1614) is surely the first literary masterpiece to feature smoking. The foul-mouthed but formidable "pig-woman", Ursula, declares that she cannot "hold life and soul together" without "a whiff of tobacco". "Where's my pipe now? Not filled? Thou errant incubee!" she shouts at Mooncalf.
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
In the 19th century, when women go to the bad they shamelessly take to cigarettes. Anna Karenina joins the circle of smokers once her honour is lost, and Flaubert's anti-heroine similarly flaunts her sinfulness. "Her looks grew bolder, her speech more free; she even committed the impropriety of walking out with Monsieur Rodolphe, cigarettes in her mouth."
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
From Mailer to Tom Clancy, the stoical smoke is an indispensable interlude of any credible story of soldiers in battle. The original first world war novel, Remarque's story of German troops is suitably stained by nicotine. "Over our heads a cloud of smoke spreads out. What would a soldier be without tobacco?"
The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
Pipe-smoking (to which the author was himself addicted) is an infallible sign of humane virtue in Tolkien's fantasy magnum opus. Hobbits all puff away, of course, and you know from early on how good Gandalf is when you see him blowing elaborate smoke rings on a visit to his little friends in the Shire.
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
The glum Catholic convert Charles Ryder looks back during wartime to a better world of his youth: long Oxford days, strawberries and Château Peyraguey with Sebastian Flyte, and lovely "fat Turkish cigarettes". "We lay on our backs . . . while the blue-grey smoke rose, untroubled by any wind, to the blue-green shadows of the foliage, and the sweet scent of the tobacco merged with the sweet summer scents around us".
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
Everyone seems to smoke in Chandler's novels, women often with particular panache. Philip Marlowe himself smokes with a kind of world-weary soulfulness, as when confronted by a sudden revelation in The Big Sleep. "I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it."
Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding
"9st 2, cigarettes smoked in front of Mark 0 (v.g.), cigarettes smoked in secret 7, cigarettes not smoked, 47* (v.g.)". Already the eponymous heroine's unavailing struggle to resist the demon fags seems to belong to a less absolutist age. How many does Renée Zellweger get through in those films?

Imperial Reports Lower Profit, to Raise $10 Billion

Imperial Tobacco Group Plc reported a 45 percent drop in first-half profit on costs for buying Altadis SA and said it will sell stock worth 4.9 billion pounds ($10 billion) to current investors to help fund the takeover.
Net income dropped to 233 million pounds in the six months through March from 421 million pounds a year earlier, the Bristol, England-based company said today in a statement. That missed the 370 million-pound median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Imperial agreed to buy Madrid-based Altadis in July of last year, months after unveiling the acquisition of U.S. cigarettes maker Commonwealth Brands. Most of the Spanish company's sales come from its domestic market and France, adding to its allure for Imperial, which is expanding in new locations because its main U.K. and German markets are shrinking.
``The focus will be to see how Altadis is performing,'' Rogerio Fujimori, an analyst at Credit Suisse in London, said yesterday. The takeover gave Imperial, Europe's second-largest cigarettes maker, cigarette brands including Gauloises and the world's largest manufacturer of cigars.

Investors will have the right to buy one new share for every two held as of May 15, said Imperial, the maker of Lambert & Butler and Davidoff cigarettes. It will sell 338.7 million new shares for 1,475 pence each, 44 percent less than yesterday's closing price in London trading.
Imperial rose 16 pence, or 0.6 percent, to 2,618 pence in London yesterday. The stock has slipped 3.5 percent in 2008, while larger competitor British American Tobacco Plc, the maker of Pall Mall cigarettes, is little changed.
The cigarette maker had said costs related to the Altadis purchase would lop 110 million pounds from first-half profit. The drop in earnings is ``all because of this exceptional charge,'' Fujimori said.
Imperial had said it would sell as much as 5 billion pounds of stock by July to help finance the takeover and retain its investment-grade credit rating. The company has raised its stake in Logista, the Spanish cigarette distributor controlled by Altadis, to about 97 percent following an offer to minority investors this month.

Austria takes tough stance on cigarette imports

Austrian customs officials have started imposing tough fines on persons bringing Czech cigarettes to Austria and in addition they confiscate all the non-permitted cigarettes they find, the daily Lidove noviny wrote Tuesday.
Czechs taking out more than one carton of Czech cigaretteswhile travelling for holiday to Croatia via Austria could be severely punished because the Austrian customs officials have started imposing tough fines on all drivers who violate "the tobacco law" while crossing the Austrian border, the paper says.
Under the law, passed shortly before the Czech Republic joined the Schengen area without border checks last December, one person can only take out 200 pieces of cigarettes with the Czech-language health warning message while travelling from the Czech Republic to Austria.
Drivers have to pay a 50 euro fine for each additional carton of cigarettes if caught and besides, Austrian police confiscate the cigarettes from them, the paper says.
"The time when we just reprimand the people violating the law or simply return cars back to the Czech Republic is over. At present we confiscate everything that crosses the permitted limit," Franz Dorninger, head of the Linz customs administration, told Lidove noviny.
While as recently as in January and February Austrian customs officials were still lenient towards Czechs violating the tobacco law, in March they imposed 47 fines for carrying non-permitted amounts of cigarettes from the Czech Republic to Austria and 48 fines were imposed in April, Dorninger says.
"On average, the drivers who are usually caught having two additional cartons of cigarettes above the one permitted carton on them had to pay a 100 euro fine," he says.
However, statistics does not allow to find out whether the drivers punished were Czechs or Austrians, HN writes.
The Czech Industry and Trade Ministry resents the Austrian police raids on people taking Czech tobacco products out to Austria. On the basis of the EU agreements from January 1, 2008, Austria must allow the import of up to 800 pieces of Czech-made cigarettes per one person, Lidove noviny writes.
However, since Austrian cigarette sellers have threatened to stage a general trike if their government failed to protect them against the cheap Czech competition Vienna has adopted special measures.
Although it has officially confirmed that people are allowed to take to Austria up to four cartons of Czech cigarettes per one person this is only possible if the health warning message is written in German.
The import of cigarettes with the Czech health warning message remains limited to one carton.
"In our opinion, such measure runs counter to the rules of free trade within the EU," Czech Industry and Trade Ministry spokesman Tomas Bartovsky told Lidove noviny.
Industry and Trade Minister Martin Riman has thus called on Austrian Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky in written to abolish the controversial measure.
Riman was not satisfied with Kdolsky's answer in which she pointed to the protection of the health of the Austrian population.
He has thus called on the Association of Czech tobacco products traders to complain about the measure at the European Commission, Lidove noviny writes.
Despite the gradual increase in prices of tobacco products in the Czech Republic they are still cheaper there than in Germany or Austria. Foreigners thus buy roughly one-fourth of the 73 billion pieces of cigarettes annually sold in the Czech Republic, the daily Pravo wrote on Monday.
According to Pravo, foreigners took some 5.6 billion cigarettes out of the Czech Republic last year.
On the other hand, some 1.8 billion cigarettes were taken to the Czech Republic from Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia where tobacco products are substantially cheaper for Czechs, Pravo said.