Cigarette companies have been criticised for cutting back on the number they put in packets but continue to charge smokers the same price. They have started putting 19 cigarettes into each packet rather than the usual 20. The industry is the latest one to cut sizes without cutting prices following penguin chocolate biscuits, Yeo Valley yogurts and KP nuts.

He added: ‘Companies are not being honest.’

The practice is well known in the U.S. where it is called the ‘Grocery Shrink Ray.’

A couple of years ago Cadbury admitted to downsizing its Family share bar from 250g to 230g with the same £1.38 price.

Strongbow packs were reduced from 18 cans to 15 but cost the same, Birds eye put fewer garden peas in their bags and Pampers put four less nappies into their Baby Dry nappies.

Pall Mall reduced the number of cigarettes they put into their packets from 19 to 20, according to The Sun, a cut of five per cent, and although they did reduce the price, from £4.25 to £4.22, this is just a saving of one per cent.

‘Shrinking size but not price could damage trust in brands,’ Lucy Yates, of Consumer Focus, told the newspaper.

The makers of the cigarettes, British American Tobacco, claimed consumers prefer stable prices over size.

South Carolina once boasted the lowest cigarette excise tax in the U.S., but that distinction now goes to Missouri. A pack of cigarettes in the Show Me State costs about $5.14 a pack — a strong contrast to about $13 a pack in say, New York City. Perhaps you can call Missouri the last state standing. Efforts to raise the cigarette tax have been repeatedly shut down at the polls and in the Legislature. And at 17 cents per pack, Missouri “remains determined to keep its cigarette taxes (and beer taxes too) at permanently low levels,” reports Time magazine.

Missouri state Rep. Mary Still isn’t giving up; she’s drafting a bill to increase the state’s cigarette excise tax by 12 cents each year for eight years. However, she’s got her work cut out for her: Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, is maintaining a no-new-taxes pledge.

And according to the state’s constitution, any major tax increase has to go before voters. “In 2006, a proposal to raise the cigarette tax to 97 cents a pack lost a hard-fought referendum, 51% to 49%. Hospitals and health advocates poured millions into the campaign for the tax; opposition came from the tobacco lobby, gas stations and convenience stores. Posters at minimarts and filling stations across the state called for voters to ‘Stop Tax Abuse’ and vote down a ‘470%’ tax increase,” writes Time.

The magazine continues that opponents of the tax increase maintain higher taxes on tobacco are regressive and hit the lower-class residents the hardest. Also, Missouri’s low taxes benefit the state because of cross-border sales coming from eight neighboring states.

“The anti-tobacco zealots are not trying to reasonably regulate,” Ron Leone, executive director of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, told Time. “Their goal is prohibition. It’s hard to negotiate with these people. They can’t prohibit it, so they’re trying to kill it by a thousand cuts.”

Leone explains that the federal cigarette tax is $1.01 per pack, and combined with state and local taxes, Missouri smokers pay 46% in taxes on a pack of popular budget brands, while brand names are taxed at more than 30%. “There is no other product on the market that’s overtaxed like that,” said Leone.

The Health Ministry will intensify its efforts next year to stop the sale of cigarettes below the minimum price fixed by the government. Its director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said retailers who sold a pack of 20 cigarettes below the RM7 (S$3) minimum price were deemed to have violated the Control of Tobacco Product Regulations 2009, which came into effect on Jan 1 this year.

They face a maximum fine of RM5,000 (S$2,100).

“The widespread prevalence of retailers who sell below the minimum set price will jeopardise the ministry’s fight against smoking. We are aware of the complaints received and are serious in curbing the problem.”

He said since the enforcement of the cigarette price control, two nationwide enforcement activities had been carried out.

“A total of 266 retailers were booked, mostly for selling illicit cigarettes.”

The ministry is also enlisting the help of the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, the Royal Malaysian Customs Department and other government agencies to inform it of such violations.

Anyone with information regarding the matter can call the ministry’s infoline at 03-88834400 or report the activities to the nearest district health office.

The ministry, in an effort to make cigarettes less affordable to meet its public health objective, introduced the Minimum Cigarette Price (MCP) by passing the Control of Tobacco Product Regulations 2004 early this year.

At the time of implementation, the MCP was set at RM6.40 (S$2.7) for a 20-stick pack of cigarettes.

The MCP was subsequently adjusted upwards, following the cigarette excise duty increase on Oct 1 to RM7 for a 20-stick cigarette pack.

It is understood that as many as 140 retail outlets nationwide are now selling cigarettes below the MCP.

Sure, he used to indulge the habit, but it wasn’t the nicotine that turned Harry Kraemer into a cigarette collector. The pretty packaging took care of that. As a child growing up in Scranton, Pa., Kraemer, now 83, frequented the neighborhood pharmacy, where intricately designed cigarette packs filled the shelves. “It got me so excited,” he said of his first purchases as a teenager. “They were so colorful, you know what I mean?”

Now Kraemer is ready to sell his collection of 7,178 cigarette packs, if he can find a buyer who will take the whole thing off his hands. He started collecting in earnest in the 1950s when cigarettes cost 17 cents a pack. Today, his son Steve reasons that at an average of $10 per pack, the collection could be worth $72,000.

The great unknown is whether anyone with that kind of money is willing to part with it for a 20th-century history of the cigarette.

He and his family figure someone in North Carolina, the state tobacco built, might be interested. Kraemer, who lives in a Minnesota retirement home, is working with his son Steve to help him sell the collection, a process that included a phone call to The (Raleigh) News & Observer to inquire about advertising.

And in case you were wondering, there’s a reason that Kraemer is even around to consider the auction block: He quit the Pall Malls decades ago.

Kraemer, who spent his career in banking and finance, purchased thousands of packs on his own and traded with other collectors to amass his stockpile. Some of the oldest pieces are from the 1930s, including packs of Chesterfield, Snooty and Happy Hit cigarettes. He owns a circa-1913 pack of Reynos.

Each of the packs in his collection is different.

When a manufacturer changed the packaging, Kraemer would buy one of everything to complete the set. So a new wrapper might necessitate buying kings, menthols, 100s, etc.

Range: $6 to $400

The value of an unopened pack of cigarettes can vary widely, said Clarke Stephens, who helped found the Piedmont Tobacco Memorabilia and Collector’s Club. Run-of-the-mill packs, even ones decades old, often go for less than the $10 average Steve Kraemer would like.

“It all depends on the condition,” Stephens said, noting that the market for old packs of cigarettes is just like any other that deals with antiques. And because cigarette packs were meant to be thrown away, “as far as I’m concerned, a pack that’s over 25 years old is an antique.”

Stephens, who collects sealed packs of Camel cigarettes, said his most valuable pack is a prototype manufactured prior to 1913, when Camels hit the market. He estimates its value at more than $400.

A pack of Homerun cigarettes, similar to a pack that Kraemer owns, was recently listed on eBay for $149.99. But most packs aren’t worth nearly that much.

A common pack from the early 1990s might bring $6; common brands from the 1960s might go for $8 or $10, said Stephens, who lives in Walkertown and worked 36 years, 7 months for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Few buyers around

Harry Kraemer has long been a member of the Cigarette Pack Collectors Association, which started in the Triangle in 1976. Richard Elliott, who runs the group, thinks the Kraemers will have difficulty finding a buyer for the entire collection. The organization has about 200 members who concentrate on finding rare packs, not buying thousands of them at once.

Elliott, who lives in Kennebunk, Maine, said a collection of similar size to Kraemer’s sold about a decade ago for $30,000. The purchaser bought the collection for a museum.

Another museum purchaser bought a 10,000-piece collection in 2003 or so for about $12,000, Elliott said. He suggested that Kraemer sell the most valuable pieces in online auctions.

Stephens advised a similar method, by breaking up the packs into lots by manufacturer.

But Kraemer wants to get rid of it all. He estimates he drove 30,000 miles some years in pursuit of his hobby.

Recently, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a wide range of brightly colored, grisly visual warnings for all cigarette packs and ads. Simultaneously, a new federal law prohibits tobacco companies from using any pictures, illustrations or colors, except black and white, in a broad range of media, even where adults are an overwhelming majority of the readership.

OUR VIEW: Graphic warnings turn tables on cigarette marketers
Both of these actions are unprecedented in the United States; both clearly are unconstitutional. Together, they make up a massive governmentally directed censorship scheme to muzzle communication about tobacco — a legal product for adults.

The FDA’s 36 proposed graphic warnings will take up 50% of a pack and 20% of the ad space. The agency has asked for public comment on these warnings’ effectiveness, which appears to be a euphemism for choosing the most gruesome ad disclosures. The proposed warnings include pictures of rotting teeth, cadavers, autopsies, and smoke billowing from a hole in a smoker’s throat.

There is no new information contained in these warnings. Unlike all other governmentally mandated ad disclosures, this is not simply a requirement to provide truthful, neutral information to the public. Rather, it is a transparent effort to utilize the cigarette pack and ads to stigmatize the product and as a medium for the government’s anti-tobacco messages.

The Supreme Court has made clear, however, that private companies cannot be coerced to spend or utilize their own money or property to become the government’s ventriloquist dummies, billboards or megaphones.

Despite claims to the contrary, these proposals would create broad precedents for the advertising community. The Supreme Court forcefully holds that all product categories, however controversial, have equal protection under the First Amendment.

Nor is it plausible that these proposals, justified on the powerful convincing impact of visual imagery, will be applied only in the “unique” case of tobacco.

The Constitution allows the government enormous leeway to combat youth smoking, which we support. The government can carry out broad information campaigns and enhance enforcement of laws banning underage purchase of tobacco. We must not allow societal antipathy toward tobacco, however, to let the Constitution’s speech protections go up in smoke.

Cigarette packs in the UAE will soon carry ghastly images, such as an unborn baby inhaling smoke from its mom and a snake coiled around a shisha, to deter smokers from lighting up.

UAE daily The National reported on Thursday that as the country beefs up its smoking ban, it also plans for mandatory licenses for cigarette vendors and banning cigarette sales near schools.

The country issued a law in January to prohibit smoking in most public areas. The anti-smoking legislation also requires all tobacco products carry health warnings, bans their advertisement and makes selling products to anyone under 18 illegal.

Wedad al-Maidoor, head of the National Tobacco Control Committee, told the newspaper that the law should have a huge impact on the availability of cigarettes once it is implemented.

“We are very pleased to be at this stage,” she was quoted as saying in the newspaper on Thursday. “The final implementation will be discussed next month, so we hope it will be done soon. It will involve many authorities to ensure it is done properly and people comply.”

UAE officials are still working on details about how the anti-smoking law will be implemented and who will ensure that it is enforced.