Intro:

Senate Republicans have rejected an increase in the cigarette tax sought by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to help close the state’s massive budget shortfall, Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack said Friday.

“We’re saying no to the governor on that,” Killpack, R-Syracuse, said. “There’s not interest in that.” Without the support of the majority caucus, there’s little chance the $1.50-a-pack increase could pass.

Nor will much else. “You have to have some desire to find another tax increase,” Killpack said. “I don’t know that there’s a tremendous desire to raise another tax at this point.”

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Intro:

Landmark legislation to put tobacco under control of the Food and Drug Administration will surface in Congress next Wednesday and may be passed along to the president early this year.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is expected to vote on the legislation on Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Karen Lightfoot, said Friday.

A majority in both the House and Senate co-sponsored a virtually identical bill last year, led by Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House committee, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. President Obama supports the legislation, while George W. Bush opposed it.

“It’s good news — it’s great,” Matthew L. Myers . . .

The legislation would set up a new office in the F.D.A., financed by industry fees, to focus on tobacco. It would allow further restraints on sales and marketing to young people, including stronger warning labels with graphic depictions of smoking-related illnesses.

But the legislation does not ban cigarettes or menthol, an additive thought to make smoking more attractive to some people. A carefully crafted compromise reached last year would leave it up to the F.D.A. to decide whether menthol should be restricted.

Both pro- and anti-tobacco forces have been waiting months to learn when the new Democratic Congress would bring up the F.D.A. legislation. . . .

David M. Sylvia, spokesman for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, said Friday that the company supports “tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products.”

But Dr. Joel L. Nitzkin, chairman of the tobacco control task force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians, criticized the compromise. “This bill will be worse than no bill at all,” he said in a phone interview.

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Jump to full article: Arkansas News Bureau, 2009-02-17
Author: John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau

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Intro:

In a packed conference room Tuesday, Gov. Mike Beebe signed into law a nearly $86 million increase in the state’s tobacco tax to fund a state trauma system and other health programs.

Act 180 of 2009, formerly House Bill 1204, will raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes by 56 cents and increase the tax on smokeless tobacco products starting March 1.

The measure directs revenue from the tax increase to the General Revenue Fund. Sponsors say the money will fund a statewide trauma system, community health centers, in-home care for the elderly, expansion of the ARKids First children’s health insurance program and operating costs for a Fayetteville campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, among other programs.

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Jump to full article: West Virginia Public Broadcasting WVPB, 2009-02-18
Author: Clark Davis
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Intro:

Gov. Manchin has proposed raising tobacco taxes in the future to extend health insurance to low-income working adults. Health advocates and tobacco retailers disagree about whether this is a good thing.

They agree on one thing however: raising tobacco taxes would lead to fewer sales in West Virginia.

West Virginia was recently cited for having the second-highest number of smoking-related deaths in the nation, says Dr. Harry Tweel, director of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.

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Posted by: Nicole Maestri

Tags: Shop Talk, cigarette, dean foods, Jones Apparel, nike, recession, Reynolds

Check out the falling shipments of cigarettes with expectations of further declines in 2009.

Reynolds American posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit as its Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes increased market share. But the company said it shipped 21.6 billion cigarettes in the fourth quarter — down 6.3 percent from a year earlier.

Reynolds, like other cigarette manufacturers, could face a difficult 2009. Not only has the recession crimped consumers’ ability to spend, but smokers will feel even more price pressure now that a 61-cent increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes has been passed.

Reynolds CEO Susan Ivey told analysts that the increase in the federal tax will hurt industry volume and she also said some state tax increases will likely be passed, even though Reynolds will fight them.

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Jump to full article: Reuters, 2009-02-09
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Smokers may quit for pets’ health  

Intro:

People unwilling to quit smoking to improve their own health may consider giving up cigarettes to spare their pets the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Twenty-eight percent of pet owners who smoke said in a survey they would try to quit based on knowledge that secondhand smoke could harm their dogs, cats and other pets, the researchers wrote in the journal Tobacco Control.

Another 11 percent said they would think about quitting.

“It’s not necessarily that people love their pets more than they love themselves or their children, it’s just another motivational factor for people to consider quitting smoking,” Sharon Milberger of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

Milberger said asking smokers to quit for the sake of their pets may be an appealing new way to get them to throw away their cigarettes. Of the 71 million pet owners in the United States, about a fifth are smokers, Milberger estimated.

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