On Oct. 1, cigarette taxes in Japan will rise for the first time in four years, forcing smokers to shell out about 3.5 yen per cigarette — a sharp increase. The tobacco tax hike will probably not be the last, as the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is looking to keep bumping the tax up until Japanese rates are on par with those in Europe and North America. The Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, is less keen to see further increases, as it worries overall tax revenue will fall as people give up smoking in the face of rising prices per pack.

So which has higher priority, health or tax revenue? The debate on this question looks to continue well after the coming tobacco tax hike, but one thing is certain: Japan Tobacco Inc. (JT) — formerly a government-owned tobacco monopoly — is nervous.

Including the hike set for October, tobacco taxes have been raised four times since 1998. That year, the price of a single cigarette went up 0.82 yen, followed by rises of 0.82 yen and 0.852 yen in 2003 and 2006. However, the coming increase is different from the past three in two major ways. First, the hike is being backed by the health ministry, not the finance ministry, and second it is much larger, exacerbating a 1.5 yen per cigarette increase from high tobacco leaf prices. The end result is a per-pack price increase of between 110 and 140 yen.

Under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Japan and the some 170 other signatory nations are expected to establish taxes on tobacco. Though it’s well known that tobacco causes serious health problems, a 2008 health and nutrition survey found that 36.8 percent of Japanese men smoked, outstripping North American and European figures by more than 20 points. Perhaps not coincidentally, a pack of cigarettes costs the equivalent of about 1,008 yen in the United Kingdom and about 757 yen in Canada — significantly more than the Japanese price. The health ministry is determined to close the gap, stating, “There is room to increase prices to around 700 yen per pack, in line with Western nations.”

Though the Finance Ministry may be fretting over losing tax-paying smokers, Japan is also facing a steadily increasing load of medical expenses. According to the results of a health ministry survey released in 2002, medical costs for ailments connected to smoking and second-hand smoke inhalation totaled an estimated 1.3 trillion yen in fiscal 1999. Meanwhile, the survey said hospitalization and death caused by such ailments cost the Japanese economy some 7 trillion yen in lost labor and other damages.

“Because of resistance from tobacco industry groups and Diet members with connections to that industry, Japan has not built a comprehensive tobacco regulation system,” says Ryuzo Ono, a professor of oncology at Aichi Shukutoku University’s Faculty of Medical Welfare. “The world trend in tobacco regulation policy cannot be stopped, and the government needs to show resolve on the issue.”

Meanwhile, faced with a future of higher tobacco taxes at home, JT has been looking to overseas markets. In 1999, JT bought up all of tobacco giant RJR Nabisco Inc.’s operations outside the United States, and acquired British tobacco company Gallaher Group in 2007. JT is also venturing into markets in emerging nations like Russia and Turkey, hoping to compensate for a shrinking domestic market.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that an undercover investigation showed vendors on a Long Island Indian reservation sold large quantities of cigarettes on which the required taxes had not been paid. Mr. Bloomberg claimed that dealers on the Poospatuck reservation in Mastic, N.Y., had sold more than four million cartons of untaxed cigarettes this year. The mayor has had a long-running battle with Indian tribes over the sale of cigarettes on reservations that are bound for New York City.

He said a video shot last week showed an undercover agent securing a discount on 60 cartons of cigarettes from two vendors, despite the fact that the agent had announced his intention to resell them in the city.

Under state law, residents of Indian reservations are permitted to buy cigarettes for their own use without paying taxes. But everyone else must pay a state tax of $4.35 on each pack, and in the city, buyers face an additional $1.50 tax.

Mr. Bloomberg said the law was being abused to “fill the pockets of bootleggers and crooked cigarette dealers.”

“These lawbreakers are robbing our tax coffers and making cigarettes cheaper and more attractive, especially to teenagers,” he said in a news conference at City Hall, adding that the city had forwarded the details of the investigation to the authorities.

Harry Wallace, chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation on the 50-acre Poospatuck reservation, said Mr. Bloomberg’s latest salvo was an effort to “terminate our sovereignty.”

“Instead of cooperation, we have seen the imposition of collective guilt on all Unkechaug,” Mr. Wallace said in a statement. He added that the group would investigate the accusations.

In 2008, the city filed a complaint in civil court against eight Long Island businesses, accusing them of illegally selling cigarettes. Investigators say that for years, many reservations have sold cigarettes in bulk to bootleggers who ship them to the city.

Mr. Bloomberg has criticized state officials, including Gov. David A. Paterson, for not moving faster to recapture billions in lost revenue by enforcing state law.

In response, the state has toughened its stance. On Tuesday, it cleared a legal hurdle when a New York appeals court lifted a temporary order prohibiting tax collection on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations.

A spokesman for the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance would not say on Thursday if taxes were being charged. A spokesman for Mr. Paterson did not return phone calls.

The state court’s decision does not apply to the Seneca and Cayuga nations, which are exempt from taxation by a federal restraining order that remained in effect on Thursday.

On Monday, the Oneida Nation filed a federal lawsuit protesting the state’s effort to collect taxes. Other tribes are threatening to retaliate if the price of cigarettes bought from wholesalers rises.

Under state law, taxes would be charged to wholesalers, who would pass the cost to the tribes, though each would be allowed to buy a certain amount of tax-free cigarettes for members.

From: www.nytimes.com

Black-market cigarettes are costing many states hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost tax revenue. And the lucrative, illicit trade is attracting violent criminal gangs that can be lethally ruthless. The rewards, and the risks, of dealing in contraband cigarettes became quite clear recently in northern Virginia, says Capt. Dennis Wilson of the Fairfax County Police Department.

Undercover investigators working with his department “had two cases where contacts that we were working with had asked us to murder their competition,” Wilson says. “We were able to fake the murder of the individuals.”

The clandestine operation came filled with drama.

“Well, we used some theatrical make up, photographs of the individual on the pavement with blood around the head,” Wilson Says. “That was sufficient for them.”

The investigation resulted in the November 2009 arrest of 14 people tied to the contraband cigarette ring. Investigators say that murder-for-hire is a logical extension of the trade in black-market cigarettes.

Across the nation, organized crime groups with ties to Vietnam, Russia, Korea and China are all competing for a share of the profits, says Edgar Domenech, who leads the Washington, D.C., field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“Depending on the quantities of cigarettes that you’re purchasing, you’re talking in the hundreds of thousands to the millions of dollars,” Domenech says. So the stakes are high.

How It Works

Criminals buy cigarettes in bulk, in states with relatively low taxes such as Virginia or North Carolina. They load the cigarettes into tractor-trailers or rented trucks and drive them north, for example, to New York. They follow the same routes they would use to traffic illegal drugs.

Police say a carton that costs less than $40 including tax in a store in Virginia goes for more than $100 in a store in New York City.

“The excise tax for upstate New York is $4.35 cents per pack,” says Brad Maione, of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. “And New York City, I think you add a dollar fifty to that.”

Because of high taxes in the city, selling contraband cigarettes at rates even slightly lower than their value in the store can mean big money for criminals.

New York doesn’t give estimates of how much money it loses each year through the sale of untaxed cigarettes. But California does. “We estimate that about $182 million a year is lost in unpaid excise taxes on cigarettes,” says Anita Gore of the state’s tax collection agency.

Gore says California has invented a new high-tech tax stamp that’s tougher to counterfeit and easier to spot for inspectors who visit stores where tobacco is sold. But often the black-market cigarettes move through a hidden economy.

“They can be sold from … the back of a van on the corner. They can be brought in through big trucks across the border and taken to warehouses and distributed from there,” Gore says.

Easier Than Dealing In Drugs

Investigators say the penalties for trafficking in black-market cigarettes are at most only about five years in prison compared with mandatory sentences for illegal drugs that carry a base line term of five or 10 years behind bars.

Fairfax County’s Wilson says cigarettes are in some cases worth more money to criminals than illegal drugs. Undercover officers, he says, have “even been able to trade large amounts of illicit drugs for the cigarettes.”

For instance, the ATF and Virginia police broke up a smuggling ring last winter where traffickers traded cocaine, thousands of Ecstacy tablets and firearms for nearly 400,000 cartons of cigarettes. The cigarettes were worth more than $8 million on the black market.

Investigators say they expect to see more of those schemes as long as the benefits of trafficking cigarettes outweigh the risks.

From: www.npr.org

If the price of cigarettes reflected the full cost to society of smoking, a $7 pack would cost more than $16, according to a new study released recently by the American Lung Association. Penn State University researchers conducted the study, titled “Smoking Cessation: The Economic Benefits.” The study provides a nationwide cost-benefit analysis comparing the costs to society of smoking with the cost benefits to states providing help to quit the habit.

The retail price of a pack of cigarettes in the state is on average nearly $7. The combined medical costs and productivity losses attributed to each pack of cigarettes sold is more than $16.

The study shows that if Utah invested in comprehensive smoking-cessation benefits, the state would see an average return of $1.22 on each dollar spent on helping smokers quit.

According to the Weber-Morgan Health Department, the Ogden and Ben Lomond areas of the county rank fifth and sixth for lung cancer deaths. From 2004 to 2008, downtown Ogden had 44 such deaths, Riverdale had 38, South Ogden had 32 and Roy had 33.

In Davis County, Clearfield had 29 lung cancer deaths between 2004 and 2008, Layton had 25, Syracuse 22 and Woods Cross 35.

Smoking also is responsible for cancer of the throat, mouth, pancreas, kidney, bladder and cervix, said Anna Guyman, health educator for the health department.

“For a regular smoker, one pack per day, the current cost of smoking in Weber County for one year is approximately $2,400. Five years is approximately $12,000,” Guyman said.

The American Lung Association states that the study comes at an important time, as cessation benefit provisions are being implemented at the state and federal levels as a result of health care reform legislation.

In the study, researchers performed a cost-benefit analysis of access to smoking- cessation programs using state specific data. Smoking-cessation programs based on three treatment alternatives were studied. The study compared the costs of providing smoking-cessation treatments to the savings possible if smokers were to quit.

The study concluded that, in Utah, the yearly cost to the economy attributed to smoking is in excess of $1.1 billion. Utah has approximately 190,000 resident smokers and an additional 42,000 visitors who smoke. The study also concluded workplace productivity losses came to $337 million, premature death losses equaled $353 million, and direct medical expenditures came to $448 million.

During the past year, the Weber-Morgan Health Department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program efforts included youth cessation and education classes, referrals to the Utah Tobacco Quitline to 30 pregnant women, education to health care providers and health clinics, adult cessation classes, prevention programs in the Weber, Ogden and Morgan school districts, anti-tobacco advertising contests, and training and education on outdoor smoking laws.

The Davis County Health Department also offers numerous classes and training courses aimed at smoking cessation and prevention.

The study concluded that the benefits of smoking-cessation programs statewide greatly outweigh the costs of implementing them.

“I think any time you can raise awareness it’s a good thing,” said Lori Buttars, public relations director at the Weber-Morgan Health Department.

“When people can see the dollars spent and the health toll, it maybe makes them think twice about what they are doing.”

Article from: standard.net

Officers stopped a Chevrolet Impala at around 11:55 p.m. on northbound Route 13 for a traffic violation, said Laurel police Detective Sgt. Derrick Calloway. Upon further investigation, a search uncovered 450 cartons of assorted cigarette brands that were untaxed, Calloway said. The driver, Anwar Ghani, 47, of Elizabeth, N.J., was charged with eight counts of possession of untaxed tobacco.

Ghani told police that he had purchased the cigarettes in North Carolina and was driving back to New Jersey to sell them.

Ghani was committed to the Sussex Correctional Institution after failing to post $16,100 cash bail.

Man Charged In Sex Abuse Of Toddler

CRISFIELD — Police have arrested a Crisfield man in connection with the sexual abuse of a 14-month-old child.

Virgil Eric Dashields, 20, of 157 Somers Cove Apartments, Crisfield, was being held on $50,000 bond in the Somerset County Detention Center following his arrest Monday night, according to the Crisfield Police Department.

The sexual child abuse occurred in the Somers Cove Apartments on Friday, police said.

Dashields was arrested on numerous sex abuse, child abuse, assault and sodomy charges.

Man Brings Alleged Drugs Into Wawa

WEST OCEAN CITY — A man who walked into a convenience store with a half-burned suspected marijuana cigarette tucked behind his ear was spotted by state police and arrested on drug charges.

Tyrone Scruggs, 26, of Pocomoke City entered the Wawa on Route 50 at about 11:20 p.m. Friday with the marijuana cigarette in plain view, police said. When he was searched, police said, a baggie containing crack cocaine and powder cocaine was found in his possession. Scruggs was arrested and charged with drug and paraphernalia possession.

Gun Arrest Made During Traffic Stop

NEWARK — A state trooper who pulled over a vehicle for passing across a double-yellow line found a loaded handgun tucked underneath the driver’s side floor mat. The driver, 21-year-old William Harrison Wilson Jr. of Temperanceville didn’t have a handgun permit, police said. The gun was a .32-caliber Colt revolver and was loaded, police said. Wilson was arrested and charged with carrying a handgun in a vehicle.

Material by: delmarvanow.com

The move is the latest attempt by the FDA to assert its jurisdiction over electronic or e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that allow users to inhale a vaporized liquid nicotine solution instead of tobacco smoke. Michael Levy of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research told a news briefing the warnings were for violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, including making unsubstantiated claims and poor manufacturing practices.

Under the act, a company cannot claim that its drug can treat a disease, such as nicotine addiction, unless the drug’s safety and effectiveness have been proven.

Yet all five companies claim that their products help users quit smoking.

“We are interested in finding out whether e-cigarettes can be proven safe and effective. That is why we sent out the letter to the Electronic Cigarette Association,” he said.

Companies named in the letters include E-CigaretteDirect LLC; Ruyan America Inc; Gamucci America, also known as Smokey Bayou Inc; E-Cig Technology Inc and Johnson’s Creek Enterprises LLC.

The action only concerns the five companies that got warning letters, but Levy said FDA will continue to evaluate the marketers of e-cigarettes on a case-by-case basis.

“We have not made a decision to remove all e-cigarettes from the market,” Levy said.

In addition to the stop smoking claims, some of the companies were targeted because they sell medications in liquid form to be used in cartridges that become vaporized and can be inhaled by users.

E-Cig Technology, for example, markets the erectile dysfunction drug tadalafil, sold by Eli Lilly as Cialis, and a liquid version of the weight-loss drug rimonabant or Compal, a Sanofi-Aventis drug that never won U.S. marketing approval and was pulled from the market in Europe because of safety concerns.

These liquid medications are designed to refill cartridges used in e-cigarettes so that the drugs can be vaporized and inhaled, the FDA said in a statement.

The warning letters to the companies say they have 15 days to respond. The FDA will wait to act depending on what the companies say, Levy said.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, applauded the U.S. push to regulate e-cigarettes.

“To protect public health, the FDA must hold electronic cigarettes to the same safety, efficacy and manufacturing standards as other drugs, including nicotine replacement products,” Myers said in a statement.

A U.S. judge in January granted a preliminary injunction barring the Obama administration from trying to regulate electronic cigarettes and prevent them from being imported into the United States.

Levy declined to comment on that case.

A trendy new type of hangout is popping up like wildfire across Florida: hookah bars. And at least one doctor says they’re not as safe as you might think. “We’ve tried out like three. I like them just because they like, just calm you down. They have strawberry kiwi, they have every flavor you can imagine,” said David Rodriguez, a smoker who says he prefers hookahs to cigarettes.

While inhaling flavored smoke may be enjoyable for some, there are some health risks to be considered.

“It’s safer than cigarettes, I’ll tell you that. With all the stuff in cigarettes, it’s more soothing to me without all the nicotine and rat poison and bad stuff,” said Rodriguez.

According to Dr. Robert Green with the Palm Beach Cancer Institute, that just doesn’t make sense.

Dr. Green wants to clear the air about the health dangers faced every time someone gets “hookah’d up”.

“There is evidence that hookah smoke is harmful in the same ways that cigarette smoke is harmful,” said Dr. Green.

Many of the same dangerous chemicals are present in the smoke, and since the bars promote social smoking, the harmful effects of inhaling are stretched out over a greater period of time.

“We now know that there is a high risk from second hand smoke related to cigarettes. My concern is people who are spending an extensive amount of time in an environment where there is smoke like this, that does pose a real risk for their health,” said Dr. Green.

Some believe the smoke is less harmful, since it’s filtered through water.

“There is no evidence that the smoke passing through water filters it or removes any of the toxins,” said Dr. Green.

Even with warnings from health professionals, some smokers just don’t want to clear the air.

“I would say life is too short. I would still probably smoke it anyways,” said Rodriguez.

Sept. 13, 2010 — Smokeless tobacco products — whether chewed or used as dry or moist snuff — may increase the risk of heart attack, fatal stroke and certain cancers, says a new policy statement published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“No tobacco product is safe to consume,” Mariann Piano, PhD, lead writer of the policy statement and a professor in the department of behavioral health science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says in a news release.

The notion that smokeless tobacco may help reduce the rate of cigarette smoking is based in part on Swedish research, which showed a significant decline in smoking by Swedish men between 1976 and 2002 that corresponded with an increase in the use of smokeless tobacco.

But in similar research in the U.S., the opposite was found to be true, the article says. There was no reduction in smoking rates among people who used smokeless tobacco products.
Piano says that smokers trying to kick the habit might want to try nicotine-replacement therapy, by chewing nicotine gum or using a nicotine patch that can be attached to the skin, rather than using smokeless tobacco products.

Piano tells WebMD that most people who use nicotine-replacement therapy do so for short periods of time, and it doesn’t appear to be as addictive as smokeless tobacco “because of slower absorption, lower doses of nicotine, greater cost, lack of flavoring, sociocultural influences” or a combination of such factors.

She says most health professionals feel that people switch from smoking to nicotine-replacement therapy are better off, even if they have difficulty throwing away nicotine gum and patches, “because they are not exposed to tobacco carcinogens and oxidants.”

Recent research has found that smokeless tobacco products may slightly increase the risk of a fatal heart attack and fatal stroke in long-term users, she writes. Smokeless tobacco products have also been linked to an increased risk in oral cancer.

Clinical research has found no increased risk of heart attack or stroke in people who use nicotine gum or patches, Piano says.

She notes that as smoke-free air laws have become increasingly common, smokeless tobacco products have been marketed as a pleasurable substitute. But she adds that “smokeless tobacco products are harmful and addictive,” which “does not translate to a better alternative.”

Smokefree Coalition Director Dr Prudence Stone says she was shocked to hear National Party MP Katrina Shanks shows tobacco products to her children. Ms Shanks was on a parliamentary panel at the Parenting Forum hosted by Parents Centres NZ at Te Papa during the weekend. She told its 300 delegates she lined tobacco products up for her three children, aged 9, 11 and 13, so she could talk to them about smoking.

She was responding to a question from an audience member about her Party’s position on Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway’s private members’ bill to remove tobacco from retail displays.

Dr Stone said members of the Smokefree Coalition work day and night spreading the message that children need protection from exposure to tobacco products, particularly when they are young and impressionable.

“It may be well-intentioned to show children tobacco products in order to warn them against smoking, but this is exposure nonetheless, and Ms Shanks is actually increasing her children’s likelihood of taking up smoking by as much as three times.

“The fact is tobacco displays encourage smoking, and that kills people. To think they can be justified as some sort of visual teaching aid is ridiculous.”

At the Smokefree Coalition’s stall more than 100 delegate signed a petition asking MPs to vote in favour of the display ban bill and signed Cancer Society’s Out of Sight, Out of Mind campaign postcards, addressing them to Katrina Shanks and Minister of Health Tony Ryall.

Green Party MP Sue Kedgley confirmed her party would vote in favour of the retail display ban bill, agreeing that parents need assurance from government that it will help them protect their children from daily exposure to tobacco products.

“This bill is extremely important for children in particular because the economic inequalities dividing families are reflected in parents’ time spent with their children, leaving poorer children with far greater exposure than those better off,” Ms Kedgley said.

Labour MP Sue Maroney said bill was also a measure of support for ex-smokers making quit attempts.

“Exposure to tobacco products at the point of sale makes shopping a taunting experience for those in the midst of quitting, enough to provoke relapses for many sufferers of smoking addiction,” she said.

United Future MP Peter Dunne and Act MP Heather Roy were also on the Parenting Forum’s parliamentary panel, but did not respond on the issue. The Maori Party did not send a representative to the Forum.

Lees-Galloway’s private members bill to ban tobacco retail displays was drawn from the ballot two weeks ago. He is expected to call its first reading in parliament this Wednesday.