Tobacco.org

Tobacco gang nabbed  

The Guardia Civil has arrested a gang that sold contraband tobacco from Gibraltar, Andorra and the Canaries throughout Spain.

Nine persons were arrested in Seville and officers seized 12,350 cartons of tobacco, nine cars and E240,000 in cash.

"The gang introduced large quantities of tobacco from the Canaries, Gibraltar and Andorra into Spain, and sold it throughout the peninsula but especially in Andalucía and Galicia," the Guardia Civil said in a statement.

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• El Gobierno restringe traer tabaco sin impuestos desde Andorra y Gibraltar 

The Government, through the Socialist Group in the Senate, has tabled an amendment to the draft reform of the Organic Law on Suppression of contraband with which he intends to reduce to 200 cigarettes per month, tax exemptions on VAT and Excise for " resident travelers "and" frontier workers "of the border with Gibraltar and the Principality of Asturias.

To this end, the amendment, which has had access Europa Press considered Spanish territory border zone that extends 15 kilometers in a straight line from each camp, including all the municipalities whose territorial jurisdiction is a part, " even if part "in this area.

The PSOE justified its proposal that in recent years there has been a "substantial increase" in imports duty-free packs of snuff from Gibraltar through the Office of the Linea de la Concepcion and the Principality of Andorra through Customs of the Forge of Moles. . . .

With regard to cigarette packets carried by persons, Article 8 of the Directive provides that Member States shall exempt from VAT and excise this product when the quantity transported less than 200 cigarettes.

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Justice Department Wants Public Release of Tobacco Warning Statements  

The Justice Department plans to ask a federal judge to make public the proposed statements the government wants tobacco companies to publish about the dangers of their products.

Department spokesman Charles Miller said the agency planned to file the proposed statements in a Washington, D.C., court Thursday, but ran into resistance from cigarette makers about whether the information should be made public now.

"It was our understanding that this would be publicly filed, but there is a difference of opinion on that," Mr. Miller said.

He said the agency will now raise the issue with U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler, who ruled in 2006 that tobacco companies violated federal racketeering laws by engaging in a decades-long scheme to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking.

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Detienen en la frontera de Andorra dos hombres con 3.301 cajetillas de tabaco [Two men stopped in the border of Andorra with 3,301 tobacco small boxes] 

La Guardia Civil ha detenido a dos hombres acusados de contrabando de tabaco en la frontera entre Lleida y Andorra, según informó hoy la Subdelegación del Gobierno de Lleida. Llevaban escondidas en un todoterreno 3.301 cajetillas, valoradas en 9.022 euros.

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Cigarette sales boom south of the border 

The hike in tobacco prices in France does not seem to have affected the consumption of cigarettes, merely the volume of sales. Fiscal tourists are now buying across the borders in Spain and Andorra. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, tobacconists have seen a 42% drop in sales, while in Catalogne in Spain there has been a rise in sales of 35%. Statistics from the Hautes-Pyrénées and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques show a similar trend. This is reckoned to be a ?30m 'gift' to Spain and Andorra.

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EDITORIAL: Increasing tobacco taxes 

Scratch another item off the list of reasons South Carolina lawmakers give for not discouraging teen smoking by raising our rock-bottom cigarette tax rate.

The South Carolina Cancer Society, not convinced by arguments that a higher cigarette tax would drive smokers over the border to purchase cheaper smokes in North Carolina or Georgia, decided to take a look at what has happened since Georgia increased its tax from 12 cents to 37 cents a pack last summer.

What it found was that cigarette tax collections in Georgia more than doubled. That means that while cigarette sales dropped (had they remained constant, tax collections would have tripled), the state government hasn't lost any money by raising the tax rate, as some contend would happen in South Carolina. ...

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BAT Is Forced to Pay Fine Due to Documents Dispute 

British American Tobacco PLC is paying a $25,000-a-day fine for refusing to turn over documents that the Department of Justice says may reveal attempts by the British tobacco manufacturer to hide the health dangers of tobacco. . . .

The BAT subsidiary that is the defendant in the Department of Justice case and which has paid the fine is British American Tobacco (Investments) Ltd.

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• French border tobacconists fuming at tax 

About 100 French tobacconists, furious about a steep rise in taxes on tobacco, on Sunday blocked the border between France and the tiny principality of Andorra, where smokers fill up on duty-free goods.

"We are in a tragic situation. Some of us have lost 30 to 40 percent of sales since the last tax increase. If we lose another 20 percent, then we're finished," said Rene Le Pape, chairman of France's tobacconists' union.

The tobacconists criticised French President Jacques Chirac for authorising the tax hikes

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LETTER: 'Smoking around kids is not child abuse' 

Dr. John Blatherwick, Vancouver's chief medical officer, is smoking something funny if he thinks exposure to second-hand smoke is "child abuse."

Would he care to explain why asthma in children has risen by more than 680 per cent since 1980 while, during that same time, children were exposed to significantly less second-hand cigarette smoke?

Blaming the majority of children's health woes on that all-too-easy target of second-hand smoke, when there is clearly something else causing these problems, could be an even biggest form of child abuse. And, to add insult to injury, his findings justify an intrusion into our homes by the anti-smoking zealots.

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Small Nations Buck Global Tide 

Unlike Monaco and Liechtenstein, with their different auras of old prosperity, Andorra is more of a raw-boned frontier town. Its gold is tobacco.

On weekends, cars slow to a crawl on the curling mountain roads to Andorra La Vella, the capital turned duty-free zone, to buy cheap cigarettes. It is reported to be a nexus for European cigarette smugglers trying to avoid steep taxes. The governments of France and Spain, and of Europe, have been pressuring Andorra to cut back on its habit. The locals are boosting skiing as an alternative. [This graph only]

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Andorra Passes New Laws Against Cigarette Smuggling 

Andorra has adopted new laws to further curb once-rampant smuggling of cigarettes out of the European principality, the European Commission (EC) said on Wednesday.

The new legislation includes a law on frauds in customs matters, a law on the control of sensitive goods, and one modifying the Penal Code by introducing smuggling as an offense.

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