Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
States are circumventing more than 30 years of tobacco industry opposition to federal safe cigarette legislation by passing their own laws that require the sale of self-extinguishing cigarettes.
The list of states with such laws on the books will expand to 32 in 2009, nearly tripling the number that had such laws at the start of 2007.
After federal legislation -- first proposed in 1974, and last failed in 2006 with opposition from the tobacco industry -- the decision was made to change strategy and promote state requirements, said U.S. Fire Administrator Gregory Cade.
By the end of 2009, 14 states will join the 18 that already require vendors to purchase and sell only the fire-safe cigarettes, which are designed to go out if they are dropped or set aside, said Lorraine Carli, vice president of communications at the National Fire Protection Association and the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes.
Fire-safe cigarettes will be mandatory in Delaware, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas beginning Jan. 1, she said. Laws go into effect during the year in Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Washington and Wisconsin. Six more states are set to enact laws in 2010 and seven others have proposals in the works, Carli said. . . .
Howard said R.J. Reynolds will start making all of its cigarettes fire-safe by the end of 2009.
Jump to full article »
This past fiscal year, Virginia received more than $170 million in cigarette excise tax revenue, $92 million from cigarette sales taxes and an additional $133 million in payments from the Master Settlement Agreement -- nearly equaling the $400 million in annual Medicaid expenses the editorial attributed to Virginia smokers. Cigarette smokers also paid $64 million in excise taxes to local governments.
About half of the price of a pack of cigarettes sold in the state goes to the government. Increasing this burden with a higher cigarette excise tax would be unfair to adult smokers and would harm Virginia's manufacturers, tobacco growers, wholesalers, retailers and the jobs they provide.
Congressman Eric Cantor would rather fight than switch. The Republican lawmaker from Richmond is fuming over Governor Tim Kaine's recent proposal to double the state's cigarette tax to about half the national average.
Cantor, who ironically counts many Philip Morris employees as his constituents, branded Kaine's initiative as "an assault on jobs in Virginia, plain and simple ... and an attack on our economy."
Such language might be successful in obtaining bailout funds for banks or automakers, but that dog just ain't gonna hunt. Raising the tax from 30 cents to 60 cents per pack is not going to result in the demand for cancer sticks dropping so significantly that workers will lose their jobs. This is another GOP scare tactic intent on preying upon Virginians, economic fears.
What the congressman fails to understand is that even with the tax, Virginia still will rank 36th in the nation in cigarette taxes. . . .
The tax in actuality brings tobacco products closer to paying for the costs they create for state taxpayers in the first place . . . .
If Philip Morris does happen to have to cut their employment rolls to remain financially solvent, perhaps they can use the thousands of dollars that they dole out to state politicians every year in the form of contributions and bail themselves out. Or, better yet, perhaps we raise the tax to $10 per pack and the cigarette giant goes out of business.
Then we would all breathe a whole lot easier.
When Gov. Tim Kaine proposed last week to double the tax on cigarettes, he took on a large contributor to state politicians.
Tobacco companies have over the years given millions of dollars to Virginia candidates--including to Kaine himself.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, a database of campaign finance donations in Virginia, tobacco companies, executives and farmers have given state politicians nearly $6 million since 1996.
By contrast, anti-tobacco groups seem to donate much less . . .
Think of a big name in state politics--former Gov. Jim Gilmore, former Lt. Gov. John Hager, former Gov. Mark Warner, former state Sen. John Chichester, former House Speaker Vance Wilkins, former GOP gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, current Democratic Party Chairman Dick Cranwell, House Speaker Bill Howell, Gov. Tim Kaine--they're all on the list of tobacco donations.
Local lawmakers on the list, in addition to Howell and Chichester, include Sens. Edd Houck and Richard Stuart and Dels. Mark Cole, Bobby Orrock and Albert Pollard.
The largest donor by far is Altria, the Richmond-based parent company of Philip Morris, maker of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes.
The Board of Directors of Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE / Euronext Paris: PM) today declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.54 per common share, payable on January 9, 2009, to stockholders of record as of December 26, 2008. The ex-dividend date is December 23, 2008.
While the ruling may negatively affect Altria Group, Inc. (Altria) and the tobacco industry, Fitch Ratings assesses the credit risk from legal rulings in the context of probability of adverse monetary judgment in the near- to intermediate-term. At this stage, it is too early to determine if, as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling, any adverse monetary judgment is likely to be entered against tobacco industry participants which could impact their credit profiles.
Mr. Tillery says the U.S. Supreme's Court's 5-4 decision "eviscerates" the legal basis for the Illinois court's ruling and could breathe new life into his case. He was nearing a final deadline for finding a basis to revive the suit.
Altria spokesman Jack Marshall said the Illinois plaintiffs have tried once before to have the case reopened and were rebuffed by the state Supreme Court. "We believe the plaintiffs' second attempt is also meritless and will be rejected by the Illinois courts," Mr. Marshall said. . . .
"An entire class of litigation has been revived thanks to [the] ruling," said Edward Sweda, an attorney with the Northeastern University's Tobacco Products Liability Project. "Those lawsuits were on the precipice of being eliminated."
Mr. Sweda said there are roughly 40 cases pending in 22 states. The Illinois case that Mr. Tillery is attempting to revive is the only one that has gone to trial, Mr. Sweda said.
Adding to those numbers, a new class-action lawsuit making similar allegations was filed in New York federal court Thursday by a Flushing, N.Y., man seeking economic damages on behalf of New York smokers of Marlboro Lights.
The release this January of the first dissolvable tobacco product by a major company has some public health officials concerned.
"This is a wake-up call for the public health community," says Gregory Connolly of Harvard School of Public Health. "It's a total sea change."
For smokers who can't light up in the office or at a restaurant, a new aspirin-sized tablet, called "Camel Orb," will let tobacco melt in their mouth. The dissolvable product -- arriving January in stores in Portland, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and Indianapolis -- is the first such product by a major tobacco company and is part of a booming market in smokeless alternatives to cigarettes as smoke-free laws sweep the nation.
"It's meeting the needs of smokers," says Rob Dunham, of R.J. Reynolds, maker of Orb and Camel cigarettes. With lozenge-like Orb, he says there's no smoke, no spit, no litter. . . .
"These products are designed to enhance social acceptability of tobacco," says Connolly. "They've left the realm of traditional tobacco products" and are more akin to food. He says they may pose fewer health risks than cigarettes because they are smokeless, but he says they're dangerous because they keep people addicted. Also, he says, they're attractive to kids, because they're easy to hide.
According to the complaint, the tobacco companies were aware of this phenomenon, but continued to market light cigarettes, touting their tar and nicotine content.
In this case it may seem a small distinction, but it's an important one: Touting that cigarettes are low in tar and nicotine is not the same as promising they're safe or safer. It's the smoker, not the company, that engaged in the compensating behavior, so in the end it may well be that the companies will not be held liable.
The tobacco companies are not blameless in the long history of smoking related illness and death. But there is a point at which consumers can and should be expected to know better.
Knowing what we know, there is a legitimate public-policy debate to be had over whether all cigarettes should be outlawed. But as long as they're legal, it is up to individuals to protect themselves from this hazard by choosing not to use a product that is never safe to use in any formulation.
Two of the world’s biggest tobacco companies tried to undermine anti-smoking efforts in Asia by seeking to influence health policy in China and scientific research in Thailand, according to two new studies.
British American Tobacco Plc, Europe’s largest cigarette maker, helped form the Beijing Liver Foundation “to reprioritize the agenda of the Ministry of Public Health,” one study said, citing company documents. A senior scientist at Philip Morris International Inc., the world’s biggest cigarette maker, gained a “disturbing” and “inappropriate” influence over teaching at a Bangkok research institute, the second study said.
Smoking could kill 1 billion people this century, 10 times more than in the past 100 years, and is “the single most preventable cause of death,” according to the World Health Organization. The two reports, funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, show how cigarette makers seek to counter anti-smoking measures by forging ties with policymakers and scientists.
“Such links are of great concern to the public health community, which is working hard to reduce deaths and disease due to tobacco,” said the editors of the journal that published the studies, PLoS Medicine, part of the Public Library of Science.
Methods and Findings
This paper analyses previously confidential tobacco industry documents that were made publicly available following litigation in the United States. PM documents reveal that ostensibly independent overseas scientists, now identified as industry consultants, were able to gain access to the Thai scientific community. Most significantly, PM scientist Roger Walk has established close connections with the CRI. Documents indicate that Walk was able to use such links to influence the study and teaching of environmental toxicology in the institute and to develop relations with key officials and local scientists so as to advance the interests of PM within Thailand and across Asia. While sensitivities surrounding royal patronage of the CRI make public criticism extremely difficult, indications of ongoing involvement by tobacco industry consultants suggest the need for detailed scrutiny of such relationships.
Conclusions
The establishment of close links with the CRI advances industry strategies to influence scientific research and debate around tobacco and health, particularly regarding secondhand smoke, to link with academic institutions, and to build relationships with national elites. Such strategies assume particular significance in the national and regional contexts presented here amid the globalisation of the tobacco pandemic. From an international perspective, particular concern is raised by the CRI's recently awarded status as a WHO Collaborating Centre. Since the network of WHO Collaborating Centres rests on the principle of “using national institutions for international purposes,” the documents presented below suggest that more rigorous safeguards are required to ensure that such use advances public health goals rather than the objectives of transnational corporations.
Two studies released Tuesday allege that big tobacco companies tried to undermine anti-smoking policies in Asia by infiltrating a research institute in Thailand and providing funding for one in China.
Public health researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Edinburgh analyzed internal industry documents made public following litigation in the United States. The researchers claimed that Philip Morris planted a scientist in Chulabhorn Research Institute in Bangkok in a bid to get researchers to play down the impact of secondhand smoking.
A separate study including a Mayo Clinic researcher alleges that British American Tobacco provided funding in China for the Beijing Liver Foundation in a campaign to shift the focus there away from smoking dangers to ailments like liver disease.
Both companies denied the charges presented online in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal. The two studies were partly funded by the National Cancer Institute in the U.S.
JURIST Guest Columnist Micah Berman of New England School of Law says that by bringing attention to the issue of “light” and “low tar” cigarettes, the US Supreme Court's ruling in Altria v. Good may prompt state attorneys general to finally force an end to this long-running public health deception...
There are two other potential, but less promising ways in which this issue could be addressed. First, a federal government lawsuit against the tobacco industry resulted in a 2006 decision by D.C. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ordering the tobacco companies to stop labeling their products as “light” and “low tar.” It is possible that the D.C. Circuit Court will uphold Judge Kessler’s order (it was stayed on appeal), but most observers suspect it will not. Second, there is pending legislation in Congress that would prohibit the use of the terms “light” and “low tar.” The prospects of such legislation may have increased with the recent election, but it faces strong opposition from tobacco-state senators and is unlikely to be high to Congress’s long to-do list.
By itself, the decision in Good may do little to restrain the tobacco industry’s deceptive marketing practices. But by bringing attention to the issue of “light” and “low tar” cigarettes, it may prompt the state AGs to finally force an end to this long-running deception. It is up to the states, but there may well be a litigation strategy that can put out the “lights.”
Little more than six months before the smoking ban is to be enforced in bars and other now-exempted venues, the government is entering the final phase of a study of smoking rooms that may offer bar owners a way around the curbs.
The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department has almost finished building a trial smoking room, along lines recommended by consultants this year, and tests by the Food and Health Bureau will begin next month, according to a source close to the project.
Bar owners see such rooms as a lifeline, enabling them to retain smoking customers, who according to some account for up to 85 per cent of their patronage.
At least one pub has built its own smoking room with financial help from tobacco giant Philip Morris.
Progress on the trial was outlined in a government paper, obtained by the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583, announcements, news) .
But here's the kicker: The Maine plaintiffs make no claim whatsoever that the marketing of "light" cigarettes has actually hurt their health. Rather, they essentially say that Philip Morris ripped them off and they want a refund.
That argument won out this week before the high court, which ruled that as long as the Maine smokers' claim is economic and not medical, their case can proceed.
(The minority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued persuasively that plaintiffs' impaired health is not only an issue here, but is the only way to demonstrate that "light" cigarettes constitute fraud. Thus, Thomas maintained, the Maine case has everything to do with the health effects of smoking and should consequently be dismissed.)
Which brings us back to you, Joe. Or, more specifically, your wallet.
The next major step in this slow-burning drama is for the plaintiffs' lawyers to ask that the court designate the case a class action. If they succeed, any Mainer who has ever stood out there on a street corner sucking on a Marlboro Light like it was a soda straw could be in line for some form of compensation from Philip Morris.
In other words, Joe Nicfit, you could end up getting some, if not all, of your cigarette money back. . . .
But look at the bright side, Joe. You can jump aboard this juggernaut without a single doctor's visit, endurance test or high-tech scan of those tar pits you call lungs. You can even go right on smoking if you want – attorney Lanham said he's certain that one of his three clients still smokes and he's not sure about the other two.
Or, Joe Nicfit, you can finally see that there's a much better way to stick it to Big Tobacco. It requires no lawyers, no calculators and no receipts. And unlike this smoke-and-mirrors lawsuit, it has everything to do with your health.