Tobacco.org

DIOTTE: Tobacco tax hikes just hurt the poor 

Smoking is an unhealthy, highly addictive behaviour that kills people.

Still, tobacco is a legal product and governments make more money from it than tobacco companies.

The hypocrisy is governments pass laws meant to stop people from smoking, and bow down to pressure from professional lobby groups such as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

That's the group that helped convince Alberta politicians to last year enact the toughest tobacco law in Canada.

Retailers must hide that legal product behind cabinets or curtains and people aren't allowed to puff in the outdoors within five metres of a building's entrance. . . .

Hagen contends the government could hike the taxes and then offset that by giving more grants for affordable housing and paying for smoking cessation drugs.

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

If governments were serious about wiping out smoking, they'd quit pimping the product. Until then, they shouldn't punish the poor with yet another tax hike.

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BRIANT: Taxing tobacco will shortchange kids  

The $35 billion SCHIP expansion relies on higher tax rates for all tobacco products including raising the cigarette tax by 61� a pack or 156.4%, increasing the tax on cigars up to $3.00 per cigar or 6,000%, and hiking the tax on pipe tobacco and smokeless tobacco by 156.4% as well.

These proposed tax rates are so high that the increases are far beyond fair taxation and become punitive in nature. Moreover, this selective taxation of tobacco products is discriminatory and is leading to the ultimate tax that society and lawmakers can impose, namely, prohibition.

In just the past eighteen months, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Maine, New Hampshire, Maryland and Vermont have raised cigarette and/or tobacco taxes only to subsequently collect less tax revenue than before . . .

--Thomas A. Briant is executive director, National Association of Tobacco Outlets, Inc., Minneapolis, Minn.

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SUKMAN: Soldier's Diary: Smoking Cigars in Baghdad  

I am writing while my roommate Alex waits on me so we can smoke a cigar to finish off the day. We do this a couple of days a week.

Prior to heading back to the tents or trailers, we smoke a cigar and talk about what we intend to do when this deployment is over. If we head out of here in late September as planned, then tonight is the 140-day mark before we leave the country, barring anything unexpected. . . .

I have had my family and friends from home send cigars over, as have a number of other officers on staff. Next to toothpaste and baby wipes, they rank third in quantity of care packages. I am still working on a box I received in December.

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BREAKENRIDGE: Crossing the line from anti-smoking to anti-smoker  

Anti-tobacco groups have been remarkably patient and persistent -- by taking it one battle at a time and never letting up, they've amassed quite an array of policy achievements. . . .

The Campaign for a Smoke-Free Alberta is calling on the provincial government to enact a further increase in tobacco taxes -- working out to about $2 per package of cigarettes. As we debate the merits of this proposal (so far, the government seems unconvinced) we should ask this question: Who are we protecting and what are we protecting them from? . . .

Also, an op-ed last year in the New Zealand Medical Journal observed that "smokers pay more in cigarette taxes than they ever cost the public purse."

On the consumption side, the case is more complex than the pro-tax increase side would admit.

There is conflicting research on just how price-sensitive teens are when it comes to tobacco. There are some groups of smokers -- including it would seem some sub-groups of teens -- who appear to be unaffected by price increases.

Research led by McMaster University health economist Philip DeCicca suggests peer pressure and peer acceptance may be more relevant factors for teen smokers. Moreover, DeCicca's research has found taxation has little impact on whether teens start smoking, leading him to conclude that "price hikes are not a very effective tool to discourage youth smoking."

At the risk of embracing the status quo, I would argue that tobacco taxes are high enough. When it comes to minors, let's focus on education and enforcement.

Children need protection -- informed, consenting (albeit unwise) adults do not.

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ROWLAND: Many still failing to see the killer in the smoke  

VERY rarely does a study emerge about the frequency of teens smoking without the results pointing to yet another decline. We repeatedly hear that fewer teens are embracing the habit than ever before, and, more broadly, various anti-smoking measures are winning the battle against the addiction.

And yet countless people across the country still encounter, on a daily basis, scenes that draw a direct counterpoint to these published figures.

Crowds of youngsters gathered in doorways with orange embers poking from the hoods of their school coats; adults being accosted to buy cigarettes from shops . . .

So it is refreshing, if depressing, to find a report from Ash Cymru lifting the lid on shameful stories of teenagers smoking up to 200 cigarettes a week.

The sheer size of the figure will seem fanciful to many, but if its shocking scale gives a reality check to any young person who has taken up the habit, or inflicts a new sense of duty on a parent, it will be valuable. . . .

There really seems little more that governments can do. If writing "Smokers die young" on the side of packets of cigarettes and forcing their purchasers to stand in the cold and rain while they inhale their deadly fumes is not enough to get the point across, it would seem that nothing would.

Instead, what is needed for the sake of a healthy future is a seriously large dose of common sense for those still indulging in this anachronistic habit.

It costs the NHS millions of pounds a year, and it'll kill you.

It's as simple as that.

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UHRICH: Smoke and mirrors 

At least we're safe, or so I reasoned after seeing a Homeland Security police cruiser parked in a red zone last week in front of a neighborhood tobacco retailer.

Inside the usually bustling smoke shop at around lunchtime sat two uniformed officers -- a man and a woman, the man delicately fondling a fat stogie that he was puffing on as his partner just sat there quietly, looking around the shop.

It was all very convenient and cozy. . . .

Then the flipside of all that hit me: If they were on the clock, what the hell were they doing in a smoke shop puffing on cigars?

With that, I decided to check out what was going on and walked into the cigar shop to say hi and introduce myself.

“Is that your car?” I said to the officer twirling the cigar between his moistened lips.

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EDITORIAL: Misplaced priorities 

It seems ludicrous to us that the city, as we head into a recession that could well turn into a full-blown depression before the Bush administration is finished plundering the American treasury, would turn its attention to something that could only hurt local businesses in the short run. . . .

But if this council were earnest about saving lives, it would ban the sale of tobacco products altogether, forego the sales tax involved, and each member would divest from every business that Big Tobacco is now in. But that's not going to happen.

It seems banning smoking is one of those feel-good things that just about everyone can rally around, even some smokers. It's just too bad these same council members completely missed the boat when the times came to make some meaningful positive differences in the quality of all our lives.

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UHRICH: Burned in a smoking war 

Much negative political hay has been made of a story that the Weekly published recently about a proposed smoking ban in Glendale in which one of the characters was misidentified by one of our reporters.

That person, Mayor John Drayman, is opposed to smoking, just like the person the paper actually quoted, Councilman Dave Weaver, the only one of five council members to return calls for comment on the proposed ordinance, which if enacted will be one of the toughest prohibitions of its kind in Southern California.

Although it took him more than a month after the publication of the June 26 story to complain, Drayman called the paper to do just that late on the morning of July 30 -- a Wednesday, a few hours before that week's edition went to press. Drayman told Publisher Jon Guynn that he had not seen the story until it was pointed out to him the previous night by City Hall gadfly Barry Allen, and that he took particular exception to a part in which he -- not Weaver -- was quoted saying "there will be a lot of opposition from one segment of the population that loves to smoke."

But now it appears that from the end of June until today we've been the only ones to own up to myriad mistakes made in figuring out exactly who said what and why in the ongoing debate over smoking in Glendale . . .

Maybe, and we're sorry if anyone took it that way. But here's something that others knew and we didn't until recently: The Armenian National Committee, which is complaining the loudest about us and Weaver's insensitive comments, just conducted a survey of 740 people around the city which found that even though most people do not smoke (61 percent), 51 percent also do not support prohibiting smoking on sidewalks, 50 percent do not want smoking banned on outdoor patios, 50 percent do not support a smoking ban in apartment units, 63 percent believe such bans infringe on their "individual freedoms," and -- get this -- 70 percent would take the issue out of the council's hands and put it on the ballot for a vote. . . .

Isn't it time some of these other players -- Weaver, the ANC and the other local papers -- did the same?

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JOY: No more smoking when kids in cars  

Now, drivers and passengers statewide will be prohibited from smoking in vehicles when children younger than 16 are present, even if the windows are open. This law builds on other great successes the state has experienced in fighting for healthy air for its citizens; Maine is one of 23 states where smoking in workplaces and indoor public places is banned.

Why the legislative effort to control secondhand smoke?

The smoke from a lit cigarette can go anywhere and affects everyone in its path -- not just smokers, who comprise only 25 percent of the population statewide. No air filter or ventilation system can totally remove it. . . .

You can make a change in the health of Maine citizens. Wherever you live and breathe, go smoke-free.

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GRABAR: Gains noted in curbing tobacco use 

an Internet site that collects published data, tells us the use of tobacco goes back centuries.

However, it was near the end of the 19th century that cigarettes became popular and their use widespread.

According to the article, smoking reached a peak in 1965, when polls showed 52 percent of men and 32 percent of women in the United States smoked cigarettes.

But society has made progress against smoking. A number of factors can be credited. . . .

Higher taxes may have given smokers reason to quit, but in my estimation, they may have been more influenced by the wakes they may have been attending of relatives, friends and neighbors who fell victim to cancer caused by cigarettes.

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Bob Barr: Cigar with Al Gore, 48 ballots  

Bob Barr, the presidential candidate who can't get a seat in the fall debates - well, one of many minor party candidates who won't be invited - has found a forum of his own: The Colbert Report.

Barr will represent the Libertarians on the presidential ballot - "a political party that believes that it is my right as an American to varnish in an unventilated room,'' Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert explains in this interview.

Here, Barr tells of having a cigar with Al Gore.

"Different cigars... not one cigar,'' Colbert helps

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STEIN: Obama’s Questionable Stimulus Plan  

I would argue that over the long term, oil companies' profits relative to sales are not above average for industrial or financial companies. But even if they were, why punish the owners of the oil companies, who are largely pension plans, group or individual, and individual investors? Why should we punish some American firefighters who own oil company stocks more than American firefighters who own drug company stocks or tobacco stocks? Why tax away the savings of some Americans because they happen to own a share in a company that supplies a totally legal, absolutely indispensable product like oil? I don't get that at all.

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• MIR: In D.C., the Hazards of Hookah 

When I was at a D.C. restaurant recently, I saw eight students walk in, sporting middle-school mascots on their shirts. They looked no older than 14. They ordered two hookahs and smoked for about an hour. No one bothered them. No one questioned them. It seemed as though no one even cared that what seemed like 14-year-olds were smoking. No one, that is, except me.

I asked my medical and public health school friends what they thought about what I saw. They all agreed and were "sure" that hookah smoking was not unhealthy or unsafe. Boy, were they wrong -- although their opinions are apparently the norm.

According to the American Lung Association, hookah smoking is thriving because of a false belief that it is safe when, in fact, it carries many of the same risks as smoking cigarettes. . . .

Shouldn't there be a minimum age for hookah smoking, as there is for cigarettes? Why is hookah smoking exempted from D.C. smoke-free laws? How is this fad going to affect future morbidity and mortality rates? I'm not sure I want to know.

The most important task at this point is to raise awareness. The city should broaden its anti-smoking campaigns to include hookah smoking. After all, this hot fad may be on its way to becoming a deadly epidemic. It's just that few people know enough about the dangers of hookah to stop the hype and drop the pipe.

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John Robson: The futile war on smoking 

Tuesday's Citizen reported a StatsCan's finding that smoking has not declined in the past three years and a Canadian Cancer Society spokesman's irritated response, "The reason the smoking rate stopped going down is because of the serious contraband situation. . . .

Apparently one cannot say often enough, in public policy, that individuals insist upon weighing alternatives and making decisions for themselves. . . .

Whether they enjoy smoking more than I do or like other aspects of being alive less, they haven't decided to quit. Like myself, they weigh the costs including monetary, but the math comes out differently. . . .

At some point we need to weigh the gains from further discouraging smoking against the costs of spreading illegality and corruption. . . .

Smoking may be dumb. But a policy that corrupts citizens and police, and that menaces public safety, needs very strong positive effects to pass the test of common sense. Does further discouragement of smoking, at this point, seem to you to qualify?

The rush of bossing people about, the tingly puritanical pleasure of snatching peoples' glowing cigarettes from their very lips and stamping them out in front of their faces is a short-term pleasure that comes at too high a long-term cost. Time to give it up.

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LITTLE: COLUMN: Is smoking sexy? 

She had just finished eating her “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and was due a good smoke. As she continues to move through the famous 1961 film she leaves a trace of smoke wherever she goes.

Now lets think about women like Edie Sedgwick, Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. They were all icons ... and all smokers.

The bottom line — smoking is sexy, and it always has been. . . .

As for myself, a girl who has only smoked a handful of cigs in her life, I know I feel significantly cooler when I smoke. Make fun of me for feeling that way, but I know you do, too.

What really gives me the urge to light up, however, is the fact that smoking has recently shown up on the runway.

Jean Paul Gaultier, chief designer for the House of Hermes, broke all of the rules in March at a Hermes fashion show when he sent models down the runway with lit cigarettes in hand.

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