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Regarding the recent story regarding tobacco taxes, the purpose of tobacco taxes is to reduce youth initiation and consumption of tobacco products across the board. Revenue is welcomed but it is not the primary goal. Tobacco use kills Alaskans.
Fairbanks could raise their tax to $1 per pack. Other communities, such as Juneau could raise their tax from $.30 to $1. . . .
Tobacco taxes are a "WIN-WIN" for Alaska. The public health benefits and communities generate revenue.
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The Alaska Supreme Court on Aug. 29 upheld a Matanuska-Susitna Borough tobacco tax enacted in May 2005.
The tobacco tax is an excise tax paid by people who buy tobacco products, bring or ship them into the borough or make them here. The tax runs about a nickel per cigarette, or about $1 a pack. Other tobacco products are taxed at 45 percent of the wholesale price. The borough, in a written statement, said the tax brings in about $5 million a year.
Borough residents Nola Bragg and Link Fannon opposed the tax during the election and, after it was enacted, filed a lawsuit claiming the borough had no authority to enact the tax without voter approval.
Bragg and Fannon campaigned to repeal the tobacco tax in 2005. Voters rejected a repeal measure placed on the ballot.
Fewer people in Alaska are smoking, and the decline in tobacco sales is cutting into the amount of tobacco tax money available for some government budgets.
The state Department of Health and Social Services reported in June that the number of adult smokers in Alaska has declined by one-fifth since 1996 to 21.5 percent, or about 27,000 fewer smokers statewide.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose independence was touted when she was named Sen. John McCain's vice-presidential pick Friday, collected at least $24,000 from registered state lobbyists in her gubernatorial campaign, records show.
The lobbyists who donated to her campaign represent a range of industries, including oil and gas, tobacco, education and the Native Alaskan community. . . .
McCain says Palin has "fought oil companies," but the Washington Times finds:
"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose independence was touted when she was named Sen. John McCain´s vice-presidential pick Friday, collected at least $24,000 from registered state lobbyists in her gubernatorial campaign, records show.
"The lobbyists who donated to her campaign represent a range of industries, including oil and gas, tobacco, education and the Native Alaskan community."
The policy just stunk.
We are breathing easier now that the city of Wasilla's double standard for smoking has been snuffed out.
Under rules changed by council Monday night in a 4-1 vote, city employees, including the police, could smoke in their city-owned vehicles if that vehicle was assigned to that employee. If the vehicle was shared, no smoking was allowed.
In Wasilla City Hall, smoking is banned. Period. Not banned if you don't have your own office. Banned.
It was time to stamp out the smokes everywhere to be fair and to be healthy. . . .
The whole notion of "it doesn't hurt anybody else," a familiar mantra of smokers, has been debunked with the known effects of second-hand smoke and the costs to society incurred because of smokers.
It was time to kick some butts in Wasilla, and we're glad the council did some butt kicking, even if it was just tobacco.
-To help its members regain control of their health, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska is partnering with the American Cancer Society (ACS) to provide Premera members with their best opportunity to break nicotine's addictive grip - the ACS Tobacco Cessation Program - that has the highest quit rate - 49 percent - for employer-sponsored programs in the nation.
Knowing that 70 percent of smokers want to quit, 40 percent try to quit each year and only five percent actually quit on their own, Premera's health and wellness team was impressed by ACS's quit rate being about 10 times greater than smoker's trying on their own. Equally impressive was the Association's willingness to adapt their program to fit the value-based benefit the company believed smokers need. In the ACS's high 49 percent quit rate, Premera saw the best opportunity to help the "hard core" smoker kick the addiction cycle by embracing the reality that smokers don't always succeed in quitting the first time … or even the second time.
Smoking may be the main reason why heart disease is on the rise among Alaskan Inuit, according to a scientific article published in the U.S. this month.
In an article published July 10 in the online version of the journal Stroke, researchers say a recent increase in cardiovascular disease in Alaskan Inuit is "possibly attributable to higher rates of smoking."
Led by Dr. Mary Roman, a professor of medicine at Cornell University, the study team looked at arteries on each side of the neck that transport blood up to the brain.
It's been six months since the city implemented the final stages of an ordinance that required all bars to become smoke free, and a cloud of mixed feelings still lingers over the community half a year later.
Some smokers are indifferent to the change and have embraced the new clean air regulations, some nonsmokers continue to disagree with the local government's clamp-down on personal freedoms, while others have concerns about the congregations of people clogging up the sidewalks and the mosaic of cigarette butts discarded in the gutters.
While smoking a cigarette outside the Imperial Billiard & Saloon recently, Nick Fargnoli said he enjoys the bar atmosphere more since the clean air ordinance went into effect.
Alaskan Eskimos' significantly higher rates of fatty artery plaque than the general U.S. population may be due to unhealthy lifestyle habits, researchers report in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers found that more than half of Alaskan Eskimo adults smoke, their level of physical activity has decreased from traditional levels, and their intake of saturated and trans fats, rather than heart-healthy omega 3 fatty acids (found in fish), has increased.
The good news: Alaskans are smoking a lot less than they were five years ago. The bad news: We're older, fatter and more arthritic. So says a new federal survey that shows Alaskans are slightly less healthy than national norms.
Alaskans are smoking a lot less than they were five years ago, but a federal survey shows residents of the 49th state are slightly less healthy overall than the rest of the country.
The number of adult Alaskans who smoke has fallen from 29 percent in 2002 to 22 percent in 2007. On the other hand, only 12 states — all in the southeastern U.S. — showed higher rates of obesity than Alaska. In general, Alaskans have gotten older, fatter and more arthritic.
The numbers came from a survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now 18, Michael is in his fourth year of busting clerks who sell tobacco to teens.
Charged with enforcing age restrictions on tobacco sales, state Department of Health and Human Services investigators send kids such as Michael - called "confidential informants" or "youth inspectors" - into gas stations and grocery stores around Alaska.
The state fines and suspends the tobacco endorsements of those who are caught. Last year, from 407 random inspections, the state issued 40 citations and assessed 49 fines for underage tobacco sales, according to a report. Nine endorsements were suspended. None were revoked.
In Juneau this year, the Mendenhall Valley Tesoro, Fred Meyer and a Breeze In have been temporarily forbidden to sell tobacco products.
Flint is a wildlife biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. One seabird she studies is the Laysan albatross, which, thanks to a recent Greenpeace ad campaign, has become plastic pollution’s most famous victim — its poster bird, if you will. The ad shows a photograph in which a slimy casserole of bottle caps, cigarette lighters and unidentifiable plastic shards spills from the downy belly of a necropsied Laysan albatross chick. “How to starve to death on a full stomach,” the caption reads. . . .
Fleischli would have us tax the most pervasive and noxious plastic pollutants — shopping bags, plastic-foam containers, cigarette butts, plastic utensils — and put the proceeds toward cleanup and prevention measures. “We already use a portion of the gasoline tax to pay for oil spills,” Fleischli says. Such levies shouldn’t be seen as criminalizing the makers and sellers of plastic disposables, he argues; they merely force those businesses to “internalize” previously hidden costs, what economists call “externalities.” This market-based approach to environmental regulation, known as extended producer responsibility, is increasingly popular with environmental groups. By sticking others with the ecological cleaning bill, the thinking goes, businesses have been able to keep the price of disposable plastics artificially low. And as Pallister learned at Gore Point, the cleaning bill may be greater than we can afford.
Alaska’s air is less smoky than it was last decade with cigarette smoking down 20 percent from 1996 state levels.
Roughly 21 percent of Alaskans reported smoking in a new behavioral survey by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services based on 2007 data. This number is about 27,000 people lower than 12 years ago. Fairbanks weighs in a hair above the state average with a 22 percent smoking rate, down from 26 percent a decade ago.
Smoking statewide declined most steeply among women and adults, and smoking by Alaska Native youths was chopped almost in half. Yet rates are still spiking in rural areas, among Alaska Native adults and among low-income non-Native adults. Progress varied depending on factors such as region, age, race and ethnicity and income level.