In 1998, the US tobacco industry entered into an agreement with the US Government to fund the creative anti-smoking ads that you see sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation such as Truth.com. Other conditions included compensation for tobacco-related illnesses and care and discontinuation of tobacco marketing practices. It also dissolved a number of tobacco industry-sponsored groups. 

Is the Sponsorship of Anti-Smoking Ads by Tobacco Companies Ineffective?

Under the MSA agreement, the tobacco industry is obligated to pay up to $300 million per year unless their control of the market dips below 99.05%. It did, but the rate still hovers in the 90th percentile. As a result, a support group for American Legacy Foundation was formed in 2004 called Citizens’ Commission to Protect the Truth.

Reports vary on whether anti smoking adverts have been effective. The Truth is reported to have some of the most effective results to this date. Teenage tobacco users dropped in the first two years of the debut of Truth anti-smoking ads by one million.

http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2011/08/most-shocking-anti-smoking-ads-why-they-do-not-work.html

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Truth has been the most effective anti-smoking campaign to this date. More children are able to recall the edgy ads led by youth activists and state that they made an impact on their decision not to smoke.

At the same time, The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has issued some controversial facts stating exactly the opposite. The report is staggering.

It cites several occasions where RJ Reynolds actively tried to thwart honest efforts towards state-backed anti-smoking initiatives, as well as particular instances where they lobbied against state legislation to increase the price of cigarettes. No surprise here. Especially since, most experts agree that the real war against tobacco resides in a crunch on the pocketbook.

Some of the Most Staggering Statistics about Anti-Smoking Ad Campaigns

One of the most comprehensive studies on smoking ads by the National Cancer Institute titled The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use concluded that anti smoking campaigns funded by tobacco industry are “generally ineffective”.
Most children couldn’t recall anti smoking youth campaigns.
The anti smoking campaigns geared towards adults was reported to increase youth’s interest in smoking.

http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2011/08/anti-smoking-ads-make-some-smokers-smoke-more.html  

Remember the Phillip Morris campaign “Think. Don’t Smoke.”? So do most of the children that saw it—and in a favorable light.
Several experts are of the opinion that the “Tobacco is Whacko” actually encouraged the rebellion of the youth population and drive more youth towards smoking.

There is legislation in Congress right now that would send taxes on tobacco products absolutely skyrocketing yet again.

An excerpt from S. 1403 (The IDEA Full Funding Act) is posted below. You will notice that a portion of this legislation even refers to itself as the “Saving Lives by Lowering Tobacco Use Act”. They are openly admitting that they want to make tobacco so expensive that people cannot afford to use it….

SEC. 3. TOBACCO TAX INCREASE AND PARITY.

(a) Short Title- This section may be cited as the ‘Saving Lives by Lowering Tobacco Use Act’.

(b) Increase in Excise Tax on Small Cigars and Cigarettes-

(1) SMALL CIGARS- Section 5701(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking ‘$50.33’ and inserting ‘$100.50’.

(2) CIGARETTES- Section 5701(b) of such Code is amended–

(A) by striking ‘$50.33’ in paragraph (1) and inserting ‘$100.50’, and

(B) by striking ‘$105.69’ in paragraph (2) and inserting ‘$211.04’.

(c) Tax Parity for Pipe Tobacco and Roll-Your-Own Tobacco-

(1) PIPE TOBACCO- Section 5701(f) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by striking ‘$2.8311 cents’ and inserting ‘$49.55’.

(2) ROLL-YOUR-OWN TOBACCO- Section 5701(g) of such Code is amended by striking ‘$24.78’ and inserting ‘$49.55’.

(d) Clarification of Definition of Small Cigars- Paragraphs (1) and (2) of section 5701(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 are each amended by striking ‘three pounds per thousand’ and inserting ‘four and one-half pounds per thousand’.

(e) Clarification of Definition of Cigarette- Paragraph (2) of section 5702(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by inserting before the final period the following: ‘, which includes any roll for smoking containing tobacco that weighs no more than four and a half pounds per thousand, unless it is wrapped in whole tobacco leaf and does not have a cellulose acetate or other cigarette-style filter’.

(f) Tax Parity for Smokeless Tobacco-

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 5701(e) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended–

(A) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘$1.51’ and inserting ‘$26.79’;

(B) in paragraph (2), by striking ‘50.33 cents’ and inserting ‘$10.72’; and

(C) by adding at the end the following:

‘(3) SMOKELESS TOBACCO SOLD IN DISCRETE SINGLE-USE UNITS- On discrete single-use units, $100.50 per each 1,000 single-use units.’.

Please notice that some of the tax increases are absolutely mind blowing. For example, the tax rate on pipe tobacco is going from 2.8311 cents to $49.55.

Now that is a tax increase you can really sink your teeth into.

The city that never sleeps is moving closer to becoming the city that never smokes, or at least the city that highly restricts it.

Nine years after the Big Apple banned smoking in its restaurants, the New York City Council on Wednesday voted to ban smoking in city parks and on city beaches, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a written statement.

The council voted 36 to 12 in favor of the ban, much to the chagrin of those who think the government is overstepping its role into its residents’ lives.

Read entire article

The public has been blasted for decades with propaganda regarding the dangers of smoking and how chemicals contained in cigarettes are harmful to your health. But, have these anti-smoking zealots also told you about the poisons in your food?

Food: The Ultimate Secret Exposed

People the world over, but especially in the United States are under chemical attack. Deadly and dangerous toxins ranging from Aspartame to Fluoride, GMO, Mercury-tainting, pesticides, cross-species chimeras, plastic compounds in chicken, high fructose corn syrup, cloned meat, rBGH and new aggressive GM species of salmon have all entered into our diets and environments– whether we want it or not.

Many of these substances knowingly cause or are linked with sterility, low birth weight, miscarriages, smaller or deformed offspring, as well as organ failure, cancer, brain tumors and Death itself, what you DON’T know about on your grocery shelves can hurt you. Further, Alex demonstrates that a pattern of buried studies, fraudulent statistics and a will reduce global population all point to the deliberate criminal poisoning of the food and water supply.

Additional Information You Should Know About
Common Chemical Linked to a Slew of Health Problems

It could become illegal to smoke in any Sebastopol apartment complex. The California city Tuesday takes up a proposed expansion of its anti-smoking law that would ban smoking in multi-family dwellings. It is already illegal to smoke in all public parks, playgrounds and city buildings. Backers of the ban say second-hand smoke can leak from one apartment to the next and should be prohibited. Opponents say making it illegal to smoke in your own home is going too far, even if that home is just a few feet from the neighboring apartment unit.

The owner of a Rochester variety store and two Seabrook tobacco shops is asking a judge to determine whether the presence of cigarette rolling machines in his store classifies his business as a "cigarette manufacturer."

Signal Variety, Inc. is a tobacco retailer that owns and operates Signal Street Variety Store in Rochester and the Tobacco Depot and Cigarette City, both in Seabrook. Company President Richard Rigazio has filed a lawsuit in Strafford County Superior Court against Attorney General Michael Delaney and Commissioner of Revenue Kevin Clougherty regarding the state's position that cigarette rolling machines in one of the Seabrook stores classify the company as a cigarette manufacturer that should be held to the same standards and requirements as other manufacturers.

The lawsuit explains customers purchase loose tobacco and hollow paper cigarette "tubes" and pay a separate fee to "rent" a rolling machine. The lawsuit likens it to what occurs in a Laundromat when a consumer pays a fee to use a washer or dryer.

"The sale of loose rolling tobacco by the ounce, related quantities of tubes and rolling machines to individual consumers has always been quintessentially and archetypically retail," the lawsuit states.

The in-store, consumer-operated machines are a recent retail market phenomena and "the State has taken the position that the installation of these machines transforms a retailer into a cigarette manufacturer," the lawsuit says.

A "Master Settlement Agreement" arose from a mid-1990s lawsuit more than 40 states, including New Hampshire, brought against the four largest cigarette manufacturers, the lawsuit explains. In exchange for annual payments in proportion to their market share and restrictions on future advertising and marketing, the large manufacturers were granted some relief in that manufacturers not part of the MSA are required to place in escrow for 25 years an amount roughly equivalent to the per cigarette MSA payments made by the four largest companies, according to the lawsuit.

"This has the natural and fully intended consequence of raising their costs so that any competitive advantage … is reduced," the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims the arrangement violates the New Hampshire Constitution and Signal Variety petitions the court to prohibit the Attorney General from enforcing the escrow on its operations. Signal Variety claims it is not a tobacco manufacturer or a wholesaler. The lawsuit claims that for MSA purposes, rolling tobacco is already considered a fully manufactured cigarette and the escrow obligations therefore fall on the "roll your own tobacco" manufacturers.

The cigarette and tobacco tax is also taken up in the lawsuit. The state imposes a tax of $1.78 on each pack of 20 cigarettes. Effective June 10, the tax rate for tobacco products other than cigarettes and except premium cigars raised from 48.59 percent to 65.03 percent of the wholesale sales price, according to the Department of Revenue website.

"Signal Variety purchases rolling tobacco only from licensed wholesalers who have paid the state tobacco tax for the product. It sells the rolling tobacco to consumers at a price that takes the state tobacco tax into account," the lawsuit states. "The Department of Revenue is apparently investigating the question of whether the same tobacco should be taxed a second time as cigarettes once consumers roll it in Signal Variety's machines. The tobacco would be subject to double taxation if, and only if, Signal Variety is deemed to be a 'manufacturer' for state tobacco tax purposes."

The lawsuit asks the court to find that cigarettes customers roll from loose rolling tobacco not be subject to the cigarette tax in addition to the tobacco tax.

When reached Wednesday, Rigazio declined to comment and referred all questions to his attorney, Andrew Schulman of Bedford. Schulman said the case is in response to a lawsuit the Attorney General's office has filed against Signal Variety in Merrimack Superior Court.

He declined to speak about the case further since it is a pending matter. He did note it is similar to another case the state filed against North of the Border Tobacco, LLC and Roll Your Own, LLC.

In documents from that case, the Attorney General argued the defendants are involved throughout the manufacturing process and are therefore the manufacturers regardless of who turns on the machine or whether the customer brings his or her own materials to the machine.

In an order dated May 14, Merrimack Judge Larry Smukler found that "the process of selling loose untaxed tobacco, which is then immediately rolled into cigarettes retained by the customer in cigarette rolling machines conveniently located on the premises, is clearly a subterfuge to circumvent statutory requirements."

The judge ordered North of the Border Tobacco to refrain from allowing customers to use the machines in conjunction with pipe tobacco, or else make required escrow payments.

Attempts to reach representatives of the Attorney General or Department of Revenue Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Court documents indicate a temporary hearing date of Aug. 19, with an appearance date targeted from Sept. 14.

Source: Citizen.com

The Senate passed and President Obama signed into law a bill to regulate the tobacco industry under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The bill will give the Food and Drug Administration the right to regulate the manufacture and sales of any tobacco product.

Several New Tobacco Regulations Take Effect June 22, 2010:

• No More "Light" or "Mild" Cigarettes
• More Restrictions On Sales, Giveaways
  Retailers will now no longer be able to sell cigarette packages with fewer than 20 cigarettes. Cigarette vending machines will be outlawed except in "very limited situations." Also, free samples of cigarettes are no longer allowed as part of a marketing plan by the tobacco companies.
• Strict New Marketing Rules
  Tobacco companies are also not allowed to sponsor any athletic, musical, social or cultural event or team. Hats and T-shirts will not be allowed to be sold with any tobacco brand or advertisement on them. Finally, any advertisement for cigarettes or smokeless tobacco will not be allowed to use music or sound effects.

If you are employed and are a smoker, you might discover your boss has found another way to pick your pockets. A growing number of employers are requiring workers who use tobacco to pay higher insurance premiums.

Newton Medical Center recently informed employees that beginning July 1, it will impose a "tobacco-user surcharge" - $35 per two-week pay period - to employees who smoke or have a spouse or dependents who smoke.

Smokers who falsely state on a benefits enrollment form that they don't use tobacco "will face disciplinary action up to and including termination," according to a memo issued to Newton Medical Center employees.

Wichita school employees who use tobacco regularly - more than 10 times a year - pay $600 a year more for health coverage. Workers pay another $600 a year if their spouse smokes.

How much more discrimination are smokers going to take before they start pushing back? Perhaps they might consider quitting those dead-end jobs and taking their futures into their own hands. Profit hungry companies have understood for years how company provided health insurance acts to enslave people to their jobs.

There are other options for smokers who refuse to work for these discriminatory employers. And, with Obamanized Socialized Health Care around the corner, anyone should be able to get coverage regardless of their employment status.

After June 30, 2010 ALL online – mail order suppliers located on U.S.A. soil will have to report all sales and provide all contact & personal information available on ALL buyers of their products to all States for collection of all State imposed sales/excise taxes and to report to all State Attorney Generals for confirmation, verification and/or possible prosecution of violators. Any seller of tobacco products that is physically located within the U.S.A.; including those on any and all Indian Reservations that fails to comply with all of the laws contained in the PACT Act, as of March 31, are subject to physical inspection (raids) by the ATF and seizure of all records, computers, and equipment on the premises.

It means that the Jenkins Act is rendered obsolete and has been replaced by the new Federal imposed PACT Act.

It is important to note, the ATF has the authority RIGHT NOW, even before the Act goes into full effect, to enter, inspect and/or seize records from ANY U.S.A. located (established) online – mail order business office or headquarters. Many of the current online sellers are urging their customers to “stock up” prior to June 30th because of the US Postal Service shipping issue… What they are not telling customers is that any past or future purchase info now could end up in the hands of the authorities!

Especially since it is believed to be deliberately discriminatory against Native American (Indian) businesses AND various points within the Act are believed to be unconstitutional. But “after passage” legal challenges and court battles take time & cost large sums of money… So much so that it is estimated that at least 99% of all current online & mail order tobacco outlets whose legal point of sale is in U.S.A. jurisdiction will not survive…There is no doubt that because of the PACT Act over 1,000 jobs will be lost in this industry on June 30th and many more will follow. Yet your president continues to claim he is against anything that causes job losses; even after he signed this Act into law!

When you can't compete against a product in the American free enterprise system, the only solution is to eliminate it through legislation.

Handing big tobacco corporations a huge victory, the PACT Act passed by unanimous consent without a vote or a hearing on a late night in March, 2010 in another one of those back room deals by our Open and Transparent Government.

President Obama signed legislation unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate and a 387-25 vote in the U.S. House. The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act) will prohibit the U.S. Postal Service from delivering cigarettes ordered over the Internet.

The Act bans the shipment of cigarettes and certain tobacco products through the U.S. Postal Service, which effectively cut off the competitive low cost method of delivery from Internet stores and handed big tobacco corporations a huge victory over a competitor. Tribal leaders say this is an attack on tribal sovereignty and economies and this will devastate American Indian tobacco businesses across the country.

The PACT Act will take away the American Indians ability to compete with big tobacco by selling their cigarettes across the country on the Internet.

Native American tribal leaders have called the passage a "sucker punch" to treaty rights, BusinessWeek reported. "This is a sucker punch to our federal treaty rights," Seneca Nation President Barry Snyder Sr. said in the report. "This is a direct assault on our economy and our people. And it will have a devastating ripple effect on the Western New York economy."

Numerous tribes sell tobacco products around the country, but the Senecas — with dozens of Web sites offering cigarettes at discount prices — have a lot at stake. The post office has been the primary means of delivery since UPS, DHL and FedEx previously agreed with the New York Attorney General to not ship cigarettes nationwide, the report stated.

The PACT Act will destroy more than 1,000 Native and non-Native tobacco industry jobs in western New York, according to Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder Sr.

“What we’re witnessing is an effort by Philip Morris and other global tobacco companies to wipe out competition anyway they can, in this case, at the expense of our economy and our federal treaty rights.”

Philip Morris, the largest tobacco company in the U.S., has supported the PACT Act for the several years it has been in the federal legislature.

The Senecas consistently portrayed the bill as a gift to Big Tobacco, but supporters of the bill said that it was simply a matter of public health. "The PACT Act will cut off a major source of tax-evading, low-cost tobacco from coming into New York and other states," said Scott T. Santarella, President and chief executive officer of the American Lung Association in New York. "The passage of this bill is a true public health victory because higher tobacco prices will prevent more kids from beginning to smoke and encourage more people to quit."

In addition to banning the mailing of cigarettes, the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act requires those selling cigarettes on the Internet to:

• Pay all federal, state, local or tribal tobacco taxes and affix tax stamps before delivering any tobacco products to any customer.
• Register with the state where they are based and make periodic reports to state tax-collection officials.
• Check the age and ID of customers when they purchase tobacco and when the tobacco products are delivered.

The Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., had 20 co-sponsors, including New York Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. The House version, which was introduced by Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., passed the House last year.

It's time to throw ALL the bums out!

Bob Weeks and Stephen Koranda discussed the recently passed Kansas smoking ban on recent KPTS public affairs television program, Kansas Week.

Isn't it interesting that state-owned casinos are exempt from the smoking ban?

Good news for pot and cocaine smokers… under the Obamacare health insurance company bailout plan, health insurance companies cannot penalize you with higher premiums. Now, if you smoke cigarettes, it's a different story… they can hike your premiums up to 50 percent higher than potheads.

According to provisions spelled out in the Senate Finance Committee's summary of the bill–the so-called "chairman's mark"–insurance issuers selling policies to individuals could only vary premiums based on three characteristics: tobacco use, age and family composition.

On the other hand, you may not have to pay those inflated premiums for long, because Obamacare will likely throw our economy into bankruptcy and the entire mess will be history.

The Utah Legislature has given final approval to a $1 per pack increase to the state's cigarette tax, sending the measure to Gov. Gary Herbert. Bill Phelps, spokesman for Altria Client Services, the parent company of Philip Morris, said that the tax will impose a hardship on the 9 percent of Utahns that smoke.

"Taxpayers, especially in today's economy, are seeing what they have to do to manage their own budgets and they realize they have to live in their means and they need to cut costs," Phelps said. "Citizens expect their legislators to run the state like they run their households and cut costs when necessary and not raise taxes every time they need money."

Utah's tax was 69.5 cents per pack, ranking 38th in the country, including Guam and Puerto Rico, according to figures from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Under a tight budget, some lawmakers say the $43 million the tax would generate in the coming fiscal year makes it an attractive source of funding.

Raising it to $1.70 per pack would give Utah the 18th highest tax, and a higher rate than any of the surrounding states except Arizona. Sen. Howard Stephenson said the increase would just drive money into bordering states like Wyoming with lower tobacco taxes.

"We have seen cross-border activity stimulated in the past," Stephenson said. "We will be sending more and more of it to our neighboring states."

General Electric Co. the biggest U.S. conglomerate has joined drug maker Abbott Laboratories Inc., lawn care products maker Scott's Miracle-Gro Co. and other companies that prohibit their employees from smoking on the job, both indoors and outdoors. Corporate policies, including those of the Cleveland Clinic, go so far as to implement hiring freezes on smokers and others, and penalize smokers by requiring smokers to pay a premium for their corporate insurance programs.

And while they claim the genesis of these policies are grounded out of concern for employees' health and ever increasing medical costs to businesses; they also claim smoking on the job reduces employee productivity and as companies squeeze more out of remaining employees to boost earnings, less smoking breaks makes for more productive employees.