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TN may boost tax on 'roll-your-own' cigarettes 

Dozens of Tennessee tobacco shops have taken advantage of a tax loophole that allows them to sell roll-your-own cigarettes at a deep discount, but those days may be drawing to a close.

Tennessee lawmakers this week passed a bill that would require roll-your-own retailers to pay a licensing fee and a cigarette tax on each carton they sell.

And proposals in Congress, including one sponsored by U.S. Rep. Diane Black, R-Gallatin, would stymie the growth of roll-your-own machines by designating the smoke shops that house them as manufacturers.

The loophole has cost Tennessee almost $4 million in lost tax revenue since 2009, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jason Wells, manager of the Cigar Parlor and Roll Smokes and Go in Hendersonville, says state and federal legislation could shut down his business and hurt the recession-weary customers who benefit from the lower prices of the roll-your-own smokes he and others sell.

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Local governments will be nudged to go smoke-free in parks and some other public places  

Smoking is allowed at parks in Aberdeen, but a new federal grant will urge local officials to reconsider the policy.

Public health divisions across Grays Harbor, Thurston and Lewis counties have received a federal grant to push to create smoke-free environments in city parks, on library grounds and government campuses.

Grays Harbor is the lead entity for the $292,000 grant that will be partially split with Thurston and Lewis counties. Mason and Pacific counties may also qualify for the next round of Community Transformation Grants, which is spearheaded by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

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• Putting the science behind FDA’s tobacco regulation  

The law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products requires that it base decisions on science, including proposals to reduce the harm caused to those who smoke and to discourage youngsters from using tobacco.

Leading this ambitious effort is David Ashley, the science director of the FDA's Center's for Tobacco Products, who sees his job as "an incredible opportunity to have an impact on public health." . . .

Ashley said he has spent the past two years hiring a staff of about 70 people, "getting our feet on the ground," establishing the research agenda, and building relationships with outside organizations like the National Institutes of Health that will conduct the scientific inquiries.

He said some of the top priorities for research include looking at ways to reduce addiction to tobacco products; reducing the toxicity and carcinogenicity of tobacco products and smoke; understanding the adverse health consequences of tobacco use; and better understanding communications and marketing regarding tobacco products.

Ashley said the science agenda as well as the work of the entire tobacco regulatory center has been steadily making progress. However, he said one of the frustrations is that decisions are not made as fast as he would like.

"There are good reasons for that," said Ashley. "We need to get input from many different stakeholders in order that the decisions we make will be the most appropriate and most effective."

Nevertheless, Ashley said that it is "a challenge to know that for every day a decision is delayed and we cannot act, about 1200 people die from using tobacco products."

Kim Elliott, the associate director at the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said Ashley is "a world renowned chemist who has tremendous expertise on tobacco product design and what goes into the products."

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• Relabeling Roll-Your-Own Tobacco as Pipe Tobacco Costing Feds, States $1.3 Billion in Lost Revenues  

Tobacco manufacturers that re-label roll-your-own cigarette tobacco as pipe tobacco are cheating federal and state authorities out of an estimated $1.3 billion in lost state and federal tax revenues, according to a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office found that cases of roll-your-own tobacco were being sold in packages labeled as pipe tobacco. The federal excise tax on loose tobacco used for roll-your-own cigarettes is $22 per pound higher than the excise tax on pipe tobacco.

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$31 million in unintended consequences 

• Fiscal and Policy Implications of Selling Pipe Tobacco for Roll-Your-Own Cigarettes in the United States 

Conclusions

Marketing pipe tobacco as “dual purpose" and selling it for RYO use provides an opportunity to avoid paying higher cigarette prices. This blunts the public health impact excise tax increases would otherwise have on reducing tobacco use through higher prices. Selling pipe tobacco for RYO use decreases state and Federal revenue and also avoids regulations on flavored tobacco, banned descriptors, prohibitions on shipping, and reporting requirements.

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• Smokers dodge cigarette tax by switching to pipes, cigars  

Sales of pipe tobacco and large cigars, both taxed at a lower rate, have soared as smokers have adjusted their buying habits to the new price structure.

The shift cost the federal government $615 million to $1.1 billion in uncollected tax revenue from April 2009 to September 2011, the report said. It did not estimate how much individual states may have lost in uncollected taxes.

"That's real money and a tax avoidance scheme Congress ought to be interested in stopping," said Gregg Haifley, associate director of federal relations at the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network. "It's also counterproductive for the public health benefit of tobacco taxes."

Monthly sales of pipe tobacco increased from about 240,000 pounds in January 2009 to more than 3 million pounds in September 2011, the Government Accountability Office found. Monthly sales of large cigars more than doubled, from 411 million pounds to more than 1 billion pounds.

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Smokers adjust puffs as prices continue to change  

• New Senators Respond to New Data on Tobacco Tax Loophole 

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) expressed concern about the findings of a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealing more than $1.3 billion in lost state and federal revenue by tobacco manufacturers relabeling roll-your-own tobacco as pipe tobacco.

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Tobacco tax: Florida missed $63 million in tobacco tax revenues  

• Cigarette warning goes up in smoke over anti-tobacco warnings 

What the health ministry proposes, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry disposes.

This is the case with regard to restricting scenes showing use of tobacco in movies and television serials.

The new rules to restrict smoking scenes, unveiled by the health ministry with much fanfare in November 2011, have been quietly kept in abeyance by the I&B ministry, documents obtained under the RTI Act have revealed. Under pressure from Bollywood, the ministry has asked the censor board to just ignore the new rules.

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Czech press survey - May 3  

The Czech state seems to be inappropriately benevolent to people´s addiction to drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, as well as gambling, Martin Zverina writes in Lidove noviny in reaction to the Bloomberg agency´s survey showing the Czech Republic´s world primacy in this respect. Since Russia has ended only 20th in the list, the survey should not be taken for unshakable truth. Prague should rather consider why the Czechs have been declared the worst addicts of all, Zverina writes. Benevolence in relation to the misuse of alcohol and tobacco has always been really huge in the Czech Republic. Smokers, for example, tend to present themselves as significant taxpayers and pass off their addiction for a merit, Zverina says.

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• ''Jannat 2' ad showing Emraan smoking unlawful' 

Newspaper advertisements of the film "Jannat 2" showing actor Emraan Hashmi smoking a cigarette violated anti-tobacco laws, an NGO said Thursday pointing to the violation.

In a letter to the health ministry and the information and broadcasting ministry, HRIDAY (Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth) pointed to "blatant violations of the rules" in the print advertisements.

"These ads, showing Hashmi smoking, have been published in supplements of leading national dailies. This amounts to a violation of the Rule 9(2) of the said (government) notification," said the letter.

It cited the notification saying that "any promotional material and posters of the films and television programmes shall not depict any tobacco products or their usage in films".

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Call for sight warnings on tobacco  

Plain packets 'could pay off'  

SELLING tobacco in plain packaging could help cut the numbers of young people taking up smoking believes a Devon MP who has welcomed a public consultation on the issue.

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