Tobacco News

Patrick Mckinnon has been smoking for nine years, and he’s seen three cigarette tax hikes.
“I was smoking more expensive cigarettes, then the price went up and I had to switch to a less expensive brand,” said Mckinnon.
His pack of cigarettes cost $3.63 with tax. He says it doesn’t get any cheaper than that.
Anti-smoking advocates like the American Cancer society and the American Lung Association worked at the capitol today to push for a higher cigarette tax. Ream more »

Just like a game of Whac-A-Mole, sin tax proposals keep popping up. State voters repealed the 6.25 percent sales tax on alcohol in a November ballot question. Now, health care advocates are pushing for a 50 percent hike in the excise tax on cigarettes. An anti-smoking coalition called Tobacco Free Massachusetts has made increasing the excise tax on cigarettes by $1.25 per pack one of its top legislative priorities this year, and 28 lawmakers have signed on.
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Tobacco may no longer be king in Virginia, but it still pulls plenty of weight in the General Assembly.

The golden leaf, a mainstay of the state’s economy since the 1600s, has declined in importance in recent years as recognition of its dangers to human health has grown.

Nevertheless, lawmakers still shrink from taxing it.
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State troopers stopped a tribal truck in Bixby on Tuesday, seizing more than $150,000 in contraband cigarettes, an official said.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol pulled over a delivery van believed to be owned by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said Paula Ross, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

Ross said the van was carrying cigarettes without an Oklahoma state tax stamp.
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Legal challenges from the state’s Indian tribes have kept New York from collecting any of the $150 million that officials hoped to get from sales tax on cigarettes sold on reservations, pushing the enacted budget further out of balance. The tribes are moving forward with legal actions against the state, which has left the proposal in limbo.
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Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have raised the state’s cigarette tax from 7 cents a pack to 57 cents, a move that was met with praise from Grand Strand smokers and tobacco sellers. Read more

Cigarettes are still being marketed in Timaru at cut-price rates and tobacco companies are standing by the decision to do so in the wake of excise tax hikes aimed at curbing smoking rates.
Tobacco taxes were increased last week, with 10 per cent rises planned for next year and the year after, while anti-smoking lobby groups have called for a total ban by 2020. Read more

Smoking:
Joe Boswell writes: Re. “Trademark attorney: the tobacco companies have no case on plain packaging” (yesterday, item 11). Good analysis by Glen Gordon of the tobacco industry’s concerns about the government’s intention to require plain packaging of cigarettes. Read more

Tate Mikell, a young Charleston police officer, had just finished a long run on the beach with his dog in 2005 and was sitting down to lunch with his mom and dad when the symptoms set in.
The Citadel graduate felt dazed as a massive headache clouded his mind. It was a brain aneurysm, and it would leave him paralyzed on his left side and permanently wheelchair-bound. Read more