Quoted from BIGK75

And don't forget, the Feds are going to raise more taxes on both cigarettes and cigars.  If you know anybody who smokes cigars, tell them to buy up...

The tax could be in the area of $8...PER CIGAR.

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EDITORIALS
Park smoking ban goes too far

   New York’s indoor smoking ban, implemented four years ago, has accomplished its goal of reducing secondhand smoke in the places that it posed the greatest health risk — indoors, where the noxious emissions could not be sufficiently diluted by fresh air. There’s now a movement afoot to extend the bans to outdoor areas such as public parks, on the theory that it will have similar salutary benefits, at the same time cutting down on litter and discouraging minors from developing the smoking habit. The advocates for such bans — the deputy mayor of Cobleskill is one — may not be completely off base, but it seems like they’re making a rather large leap.
   The smoke produced by a burning cigarette, cigar or pipe is hazardous for anyone who breathes it, but the less concentrated it is, the less of a threat it constitutes. The difference between the concentration of smoke in even a moderately ventilated room and the great outdoors is substantial, even on the stillest of days.
   Perhaps someone sitting immediately next to a smoker on a park bench would notice the odor, or get a snoot full of secondhand smoke if the wind were blowing just right. But that person could always get up and move; a park is not like an outdoor arena, where spectators can be packed in row upon row and may not necessarily be able to change their seats to avoid an unpleasant odor. (Smoking bans in such instances are warranted, and in many stadiums around the country were imposed even before indoor smoking bans started to be passed.)
   As for an adult’s smoking influencing a child who might be playing nearby: Does the “tobacco-free” crowd somehow think it can keep kids from observing what remains a lawful activity in this country? That seems unlikely, especially given how the indoor smoking ban has driven smokers outdoors — at least the ones who haven’t quit.
   And that was the whole point of the indoor smoking ban: getting smokers to go outdoors, where they wouldn’t bother nonsmokers as much. It’s worked. But as long as smoking remains legal in this country, it seems only fair that smokers be allowed places, in public, to smoke. Parks shouldn’t be off-limits except under extraordinary circumstances.  

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Burst of giving from tobacco giant
Contributions made to GOP, Democratic Senate funds amid talk of cigarette tax hike

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau
First published: Friday, January 18, 2008

ALBANY -- Amid talk of a tax hike on cigarettes, big tobacco is once again flexing its financial muscle in the state Legislature, according to the latest filings with the state Board of Elections.
Altria Group, which owns Philip Morris, maker of cigarette brands such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Basic, gave more than $100,000 to the Republican and Democratic parties in recent weeks.
     
Much of the money went to the Republican and Democratic Senate campaign committees' housekeeping, or soft money, accounts, including $35,000 to the GOP, which holds the majority, and $30,000 to the Democrats.
The contributions come as the Spitzer administration is considering raising the state's $1.50-per-pack excise tax on cigarettes. Budget experts have noted New Jersey charges $2.57, and groups like the American Cancer Society want a $3 charge.
Additionally, several counties, including Albany, Rockland, Tompkins and Onondaga, have over the past few years discussed raising from 18 to 19 the minimum age at which tobacco can be purchased. Suffolk County already has such a law, said American Cancer Society of New York spokeswoman Jennifer Cucurullo.
Altria gave $10,000 to the Onondaga County Republicans as lawmakers there are revisiting a so-called Tobacco 19 bill that passed in 2006 but was vetoed by then-County Executive Nicholas Pirro. The company also gave $9,500 to the Erie County Democrats.
Lawmakers contend that contributions don't influence their votes.
Altria spokeswoman Dawn Schneider said her firm gives money for civic, rather than business purposes.
"We have a long-standing commitment and involvement in the political process, in a bipartisan fashion, on behalf of our shareholders," Schneider said.
Others disagree.
"A state tobacco tax increase is one of our highest priorities, and the tobacco industry obviously smells it coming," said Peter Slocum, vice president for advocacy with the Cancer Society.
Kevin O'Flaherty, director of advocacy in the Northeast Region for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, believes cigarette makers are more worried about a steeper excise tax than a higher purchase age.
"With a $4 billion budget deficit and talk about a significant increase in the tobacco tax, that's an amount they can't market their way out of," he said.
There are no limits on donations to so-called housekeeping accounts. The money is not supposed to be spent on specific candidates, but critics say the state's laws are so loose the funds can benefit individual politicians.
Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.
Political contributions
Here's a look at some of the latest political contributions by Altria, the parent company of cigarette producer Philip Morris, or its affiliates.
Friends of Assemblyman Tedisco: $500Conservative Party of NYS: $10,000
Erie County Republican Committee: $10,000
NYS Senate Republican Campaign Committee: $25,000O
Onondaga County Republican Committee: $10,000
Monroe County Democratic Committee: $9,500
New York State Republican Committee: $10,000
Democratic Senate Campaign Committee: $30,000
Source: State Board of Elections

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Lawmakers contend that contributions don't influence their votes.

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New York should raise cigarette tax to reduce smoking

    According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released Feb. 7, tobacco use killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people in the current century. This is a sobering reminder that the battle against big tobacco continues, and further evidence that more can, and must, be done to stop the deadly effects of tobacco use.
    Here in New York, smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths. Sadly, New Yorkers are continuing to light up — even worse, our youth are still taking up the deadly habit. This is why the American Lung Association is leading the charge to save lives by making smoking expensive and inconvenient.
    We do not stand alone. New York State’s 2007 adult tobacco survey indicated that most adults support a cigarette tax increase. In fact, 59 percent of adults support a $1 increase in the cigarette tax. Even more remarkable, an astonishing 77 percent support a tax increase — if the revenue from the tax is used to help smokers quit.
    Enacting an additional $1.50 in tobacco excise tax will create an economic incentive for smokers to quit their deadly addiction, and at the same time will increase funding for tobacco control programs.
    Currently, the excise tax on cigarettes in New York is $1.50 — placing 15 states ahead of us. Across the nation, nine states have a tax of $2 per pack or more. New York last raised the excise tax in 2002. Since then, 43 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have increased their cigarette taxes more than 75 times. Our elected state officials must find the resolve to act now to protect public health and increase the excise tax.
    MICHAEL SEILBACK
    Albany
The writer is senior director of public policy and advocacy for the American Lung Association of New York State.

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Smokers, others facing brunt of higher budget
State leaders consider increasing tax on cigarettes by $1.50 a pack
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

    ALBANY — The 2008-09 state budget, we’re told, will contain hard choices. But the choices will be harder for some.
    The reason for difficult decisions is clear: A national recession that’s all but declared, layoffs and losses on Wall Street that provide 20 percent of state revenues and declining revenue from income, sales and other taxes tied to the economy.
    Yet the proposed state budget, due Tuesday and being detailed this weekend, calls for about a 4.5 percent increase in spending, perhaps even a bit higher. And one of the biggest pieces — state school aid — will still be a whopper: A record $1.8 billion increase for state school aid already at about $20 billion, which includes among the highest per-pupil funding in the nation.
    And in Albany, a “cut” almost always refers to a reduction in the planned increased in spending. In this case, many of the cuts are Gov. David Paterson’s revisions to the spending plan presented in February by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this month when he was named in a prostitution investigation.
    So, as one reporter asked of budget aides to Gov. David Paterson, “Where’s the pain?”
    Here it is:
    Smokers face up to a $1.50 per pack increase in the cigarette tax.
    The state tax is already $1.50 per pack, and in New York City, because of an additional local tax it’s $4.50 a pack.
    That’s quite a monkey on the
back of a pack of cigarettes, which average $5.82 a pack. It could add up to $200 million to $500 million for the state.
    And in New York City, there’s talk of adding another 50-cent tax on each pack in coming months.
    For some of New York’s businesses, the cost of hard times in Albany could be measured in the millions. That’s because “loophole closers” was still an item on the table Saturday. Supporters say it closes corporate loopholes that have allowed big businesses to avoid some taxes. Opponents, including the Republican-led Senate, say it’s a tax, pure and simple.
    But there’s more pain on track. Riders of New York City’s subways and users of its tunnels and bridges could eventually see a fare increase because of Paterson’s proposed trimming of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget. Paterson’s 2 percent cut of many agencies across the board would take $60 million in operating aid away from the MTA.
    And cities, particularly those already crushed for years under a slumping upstate economy, will see 2 percent cuts in their municipal aid. For a city like Schenectady, the cut means $220,000.
    Add to that other “revenue raisers” still on the table surrounded by lawmakers desperate for cash: Expanding the hours of the Quick Draw lottery game, sometimes called “video crack”; redefining some malt beverages to light liquor and little cigars into cigarettes to snag higher tax rates; and countless other increases to user fees.
    “All of this stuff is in the process,” said Jeffrey Gordon, spokesman for Paterson’s budget offi ce. “The Legislature is deliberating and determining the next steps for all of those issues.”
    Which is included and which isn’t probably won’t be known for sure until at least today, when lawmakers report back to their leaders on spending and revenues for different areas of the budget proposal.
    “It’s part of an overall decision to introduce a series of fees and service cuts that mostly affect middle-class people,” objected Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat. “We’re prepared to act responsibly in a difficult time, but a number of us are not satisfied to single out middle-class families.”
    Spared an unkind cut, at this point, are New York’s richest.
    The Senate’s Republican majority and the Democratic governor appear to have beaten back a proposal by the Assembly’s Democratic majority to increase the tax temporarily on New Yorkers making over $1 million.
    But Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, and some colleagues hold out for trying again, if not this weekend then later in the year when revenue forecasts are expected to be even bleaker.
    But the Republican Senate might also balk at the MTA funding
    cut.
    “We do not want to do anything that will jeopardize raising any fares for riders of the system,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Thomas Libous, a Broome County Republican.
    No similar stand is being publicly made against the cigarette tax proposal, being fought behind the scenes by lobbyists for Philip Morris USA. In this, the company faces the Center for a Tobacco Free New York, a coalition of health groups that has spent $200,000 on radio advertisements and print ads to support doubling the $1.50 cigarette tax for a total $3 per-pack tax.
    “We’re in the mix,” said Russell Sciandra, of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York. Lawmakers are considering compromises of lower tax increases.
    “The impact is going to be very bad,” said Dan Shanahan, chief fi scal officer of Wilson Farms Inc., with 200 convenience stores in the Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse areas. “There will be stores that go out of business,” said the former smoker.
    He argues that most smokers will still smoke, but they will evade state taxes altogether by turning to Internet purchases and untaxed sales by stores run by Indian tribes. He said cigarette sales dropped 10 percent when the state tax last increased in 2002.
    “It’s a technical balance of the budget that won’t produce the revenue,” he said. “I think it’s easy to get away with it in Albany and downstate, but we’re taking it on the chin here in central and western New York.”

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That’s quite a monkey on the
back of a pack of cigarettes,

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CAPITOL
State OKs cigarette tax boost Charge of $2.75 per pack will be nation’s highest
BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press

    New York’s government leaders have agreed to boost the state cigarette tax by $1.25 per pack to create the nation’s highest state cigarette tax, officials said Wednesday.
    New York’s $2.75-per-pack tax would jump ahead of New Jersey for the highest state tax in the nation. New York has been ranked the 16th highest with a tax of $1.50 tax per pack.
    In New York, the average price of a pack of cigarettes is about $5.82 statewide.
    New Jersey’s tax is $2.57 a pack, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
    The lowest state cigarette tax is in tobacco growing states, including South Carolina where the tax is 7 cents per pack.
    “You can bet we were rooting behind the scenes for the tobacco tax,” said New York Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines, who confirmed the tax will increase by $1.25.
    The original proposal was for a $1.50 increase.
    “We think that’s fantastic,” said Peter Slocum, spokesman for the American Cancer Society. “It will still probably prevent more than 200,000 teenagers from starting to smoke,” he said. “That’s a win-win for now and for the future.”
    State budget office spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said the tax would raise $265 million for New York’s $124 billion proposed budget. Much of the cigarette tax revenue would be used for health programs including those to help smokers quit and keep youths from starting.
    “This is putting a gun to my head and saying you are taking money from me for my own good,” said Audrey Silk of Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, based in New York City. “It’s no different than a robber saying that when he’s sticking you up.”
    She disputes claims that raising the tax will reduce smoking.
    “Those are based on self reports and in this day and age, you’re demonized as a smoker,” she said. “Taxation shouldn’t be used for social engineering.”
    The first increase in the cigarette tax since 2002 was considered essential by many in Albany as they tried to craft a 2008-09 budget with an estimated $5 billion deficit and declining revenue growth.
    During this week’s budget negotiations, the status of the tax had often changed from one closeddoor meeting to another.
    But Gov. David Paterson administration officials and legislative officials confirmed there is agreement on a $1.25 increase, although it won’t be final in a revenue bill or voted on until later this week.
    “We’re not confirming any agreements on revenue because there are none,” said John McArdle, spokesman for Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, who was most opposed to raising the tax.
    “It’s a great victory for the public and a great victory for the people who overcame a lobbying onslaught by the tobacco industry,” said Russ Sciandra of The Center for a Tobacco Free New York.

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ROTTERDAM
Health chief urges grocers to stop selling cigarettes
Industry leader warns of ‘slippery slope’
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter

    Supermarkets throughout New York found themselves being publicly spanked Wednesday by the state health commissioner, who urged them to pull tobacco products from their shelves.
    The Health Department and a host of consumer health advocacy groups ran separate full-page ads in several upstate newspapers, nudging grocers to “put public health before profits by kicking butts.”
    While the supermarket industry spokespersons are used to such public critiques from advocacy groups, they were shocked to find Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines joining the anti-tobacco chorus.
    “This is using our bully pulpit to persuade,” Daines said in a phone interview with The Daily Gazette.
    The ads, which appeared locally in The Daily Gazette and the Times Union, mark a strategy shift for the Health Department. The agency also issued a news release in which Daines criticized supermarkets’ sale of cigarettes.
    The Health Department, which Daines took over last year, has been stepping up its anti-tobacco initia- tives. In recent months, Daines has urged movie studios to not include cigarettes in films geared toward teenagers. He also asked the Food and Drug Administration to allow New York convenience stores to sell nicotine replacement items at a lower price.
    Daines wants to reduce the state’s ranks of smokers — now 2.7 million strong — by 1 million by 2010.
    Daines said the $1.25 cigarette tax hike lawmakers have included in the state budget should prompt 100,000 people to quit smoking. The increase will make New York’s cigarette tax the highest in the nation at $2.75 per pack. But Daines’ latest anti-smoking initiative has its detractors.
    “We’re selling products New York says is legal, and it’s a slippery slope when the government tells you what you should and shouldn’t buy,” said Jim Rogers, the president and chief executive offi cer of the Food Industry Alliance of New York State, an Albany-based trade organization.
    Rogers said it was “curious” the way supermarkets were singled out by the Health Department, which has no regulatory authority over that industry. He said the Health Department was acting “disingenuously and hypocritically,” especially since the agency recently worked with the supermarket industry in training cashiers not to sell tobacco products to minors.
    “We’re encouraging food retailers to not sell this toxic product. I don’t see any hypocrisy to it,” Daines said.
    Judy Rightmyer, director of the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition in Troy, said her organization targeted supermarkets in its ad because some upstate grocers have already stopped selling cigarettes. Since January, three supermarket chains have announced plans to stop selling cigarettes: Wegmans Food Markets and Budwey’s Supermarkets in western New York and DeCicco Markets in the Hudson Valley.
    It also seemed more reasonable to target supermarkets because tobacco is not as important to supermarkets as it is to convenience stores, said Rightmyer.
    Mona Golub, a spokeswoman for the Rotterdam-based Price Chopper chain, said the latest anti-tobacco campaign pits the good intentions of some against the legal rights of others. She noted that Price Chopper two months ago started reducing the visibility of cigarettes in supermarkets by covering tobacco product kiosks with opaque sheets.
    In November, the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition criticized area supermarkets for exposing children to colorful cigarette displays. Golub said the kiosk sheets address those concerns. The coalition is funded by the Health Department.
    A spokesman for the Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford supermarket chain did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

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Don’t make supermarkets quit selling cigarettes

    State Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t speak out against smoking once in a while, but we think he overstepped his bounds when he joined the recent statewide ad campaign pressuring supermarkets to stop selling cigarettes.
    The last time we looked, cigarettes were still legal everywhere in this country. The federal and state governments have taken numerous steps over the years to discourage smoking — putting scary warnings on the sides of cigarette packs, banning certain kinds of advertising, severely restricting where smokers can light up, taxing cigarettes to the hilt, etc. The efforts have paid dividends, as more and more smokers have quit, fewer people have started, and nonsmokers have cleaner air to breathe.
    But there should be a limit as to how far government can go in regulating the sale and use of a product it still refuses to outlaw. Eliminating one of the primary places to obtain the product qualifies is just such an example of going too far.
    If smokers couldn’t buy their cigarettes in supermarkets, about the only legal place left for them would be in “convenience” stores. Not very convenient for smokers, and why give these kinds of stores a virtual monopoly?
    Reducing smokers’ legal access to cigarettes might encourage them to go underground — buying on the black market, online or from Indian reservations. (This would, of course, deprive the state of needed tax revenue.) The $1.25-per-pack state tobacco tax hike in this year’s state budget will push them underground to some extent, too.
    It will also encourage thousands to quit smoking, so it is justified. For those who can’t, or still don’t want to, cigarettes shouldn’t be made any harder to obtain, at least not physically.
    Most supermarkets have already made their displays of cigarettes less obtrusive, removing them from checkout aisles and putting them behind service desks, or at least in more-discreet display cases. For now, that should satisfy all but the most ardent smoking foes.

Quoted from Shadow

We've already lost a few of our rights and the government will take more if we let them.

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Higher tobacco taxes spur concern about black market
BY DAVID B. CARUSO The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — Tucked away on just 55 acres in a nondescript Long Island suburb, the Poospatuck Indian Reservation is easy to miss on the long drive up the coast from New York City. But to anyone looking for cheap tobacco, the 60-mile haul is worth the trip.
    Cigarettes are sold tax free on tribal lands in New York, and the savings are eye-popping. Once lawmakers approve the state’s latest hike, crafted last week, smokers will be able to avoid $2.75 in taxes per pack by buying on the reservation. The discount jumps to $4.25 if you factor in the municipal tax added in New York City.
    That huge price difference is one of the reasons why smoke shops on New York’s Indian reservations sold nearly 304 million packs of cigarettes last year — nearly a third of the state’s recorded total.
    The numbers are equally eyepopping when broken down by reservation. The Poospatuck reservation, with a population of about 270, accepted shipment of about 100 million packs of cigarettes last year — enough to supply every smoker in New York City with a pack a day for 3 /2 months, according to the state’s finance department.
    But Indian reservations are far from the only source of tax-free smokes.
CHINESE COUNTERFEITS
    Law enforcement agents say smugglers now routinely use container ships to import counterfeit cigarettes from China. Criminal gangs stock up on cigarettes in lowtax states like Virginia and illegally truck them north. Buyers big and small order an untold number of untaxed cartons on the Internet.
    Some experts are concerned that instances of smuggling, bootlegging and questionable reservation sales will only increase when the tax goes up, and they caution that the problem extends far beyond New York.
    “This is a global problem. It is a national problem,” said Phillip Awe, a chief tobacco law enforcer for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
    Already, from coast to coast, contraband cigarettes are trafficked daily by schemers exploiting differences in tax rates, Awe said, at a cost of “billions and billions of dollars” in lost revenue to the states.
    Traditionally, the illicit cigarette business has flourished in cities with organized crime, but lately there have been incentives for the trade to expand elsewhere.
    Fourteen states have increased tobacco taxes in the past two years, according to the Tobacco Merchants Association, an industry research group.
    Legislation asking for hikes is pending in another 19 states, including a proposed 50-cent increase in South Carolina, where the current 7-cent tax is the nation’s lowest, and New York, which would jump from 16th to 1st by raising its tax from the current $1.50 per pack. The tax increase will bring the cost of a pack of cigarettes to about $9 in New York City.
    Higher taxes could mean the potential for even bigger profits for entrepreneurs who buy cigarettes from untaxed sources and illicitly resell them, said Arthur Katz, executive director of the New York State Association of Wholesale Marketers and Distributors, a group that represents tobacco dealers.
    “You’d have to be crazy to go and buy cigarettes at the store at almost $9 per pack,” Katz said.
    The business is already a big one.
    California officials estimate that taxes go unpaid on about 15 percent of all tobacco sold in its markets, at a cost of $276 million per year. New York put its losses at more than $576 million in a study released in 2006.
    The issue has already prompted some action. The ATF said it is refining its national strategy for combating trafficking in contraband cigarettes and has substantially expanded its investigations, opening up some 700 new cases in the last five years.
    In March 2005, major credit-card companies agreed to stop processing payments from Internet retailers. Shippers DHL and UPS Inc. agreed to stop shipping cigarettes to residential addresses.
    U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., has proposed a bill that would increase the penalties for smuggling, bar the shipment of cigarettes through the U.S. Postal Service, and make it a federal offense for Internet retailers to ignore state tax laws. A hearing on the bill has been scheduled for April 15.
‘GREAT MYSTERY’
    Weiner also called it a “great mystery” why New York hadn’t also cracked down on bulk purchases of cigarettes at Indian reservations by scofflaws who resell them elsewhere. Cigarettes sold on New York’s reservations now routinely turn up for sale in other states and in Canada.
    “You go stand in front of the Shinnecock Reservation on Long Island, in the Hamptons, and you can see people loading boxes and boxes and cases into their trucks,” Weiner said.
    For years in New York, state officials fearing tribal protests have hesitated to enforce an existing law requiring reservation smoke shops to collect taxes from non-Indian buyers.
    They have been especially reluctant to interfere in western New York, where the Seneca Nation, a major distributor of cigarettes, is an economic force in a region that is struggling financially.
    But New York City has gone to court to force the issue; the lawsuit against tobacco wholesalers is pending.
    Law enforcement agencies have at times put reservation smoke shops under surveillance to try and catch outsiders illegally loading up on cigarettes, and over the years there have been dozens of arrests.
    On the Poospatuck Reservation, federal authorities have also charged the owner of the Peace Pipe Smoke Shop, Rodney Morrison, with engaging in a “reign of terror” to protect his multimilliondollar cigarette business.
CASE PENDING
    Prosecutors said Morrison orchestrated the 2003 murder of an associate who opened a competing store, robbed another rival of tens of thousands of dollars, and set fire to the car of a third competitor. Morrison’s lawyers say he is innocent. A jury began deliberating in the case last week.
    Harry Wallace, the owner of a smoke shop on the reservation and the chief of the Unkechaug Nation, is quick to point out that Morrison is not an American Indian by birth; before marrying into the tribe and moving to the reservation, he lived in Brooklyn, where prosecutors said he was once a cocaine dealer.
    “Whatever crimes he’s committed, or not committed, we’re not like he is,” Wallace said. He said the tribe didn’t condone purchases of tobacco on the reservation by anyone who doesn’t intend it for “personal use.”
    As for New York’s expected tax hike, Wallace predicted it would bring nothing but pain to Indian cigarette merchants, and he called it “an absolute certainty” that there will be a pressure for the state to begin taxing reservation sales.
    “We’re going to be scapegoated again as the sole reason why there is all this illegal activity.”

ED BETZ/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS An unidentified man loads cigarettes into a dark plastic bag outside of Peace Pipe Smoke Shop where discount cigarettes are sold in Mastic. The owner of the shop has been charged with murder and other crimes against his competitors.

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Smoke signals
First published: Monday, April 7, 2008

Should supermarkets stop selling cigarettes? We think that's a decision for the markets to make. But whether they should decide under pressure of a new anti-smoking advertising campaign is a more complex matter.
It's hard to argue with anti-smoking groups that want supermarkets to voluntarily stop selling cigarettes, as some chains in New York already have. As the state Health Department points out, in an advertisement that appeared in this newspaper and others last week, a pack of smokes hardly belongs among such grocery cart staples as bread, eggs, milk, cheese and broccoli. Tobacco just doesn't fit in. Or at least it shouldn't.
But it is equally hard to argue with the supermarket chains when they say they are caught in the middle of competing interests. Tobacco remains a legal product. As long as it is not sold to minors, why shouldn't supermarkets carry it?
And that's only part of the dilemma. Consider this: Anti-smoking advocates note, correctly, that cigarette advertising and product displays tend to glamorize this unhealthy product, especially in the eyes of youth. But what about other products that are similarly displayed, such as beer? Doesn't alcohol pose a risk to youngsters as much as tobacco? And aren't the consequences of alcohol abuse more immediate than tobacco?
So where to draw the line?
Some supermarkets have taken steps to conceal tobacco products from sight or keep them behind counters, out of customers' reach. That seems like a sensible compromise.
The larger issue, of course, is the mixed signals that New York state sends on smoking. Even as the Health Department was calling on supermarkets to stop selling cigarettes, the Legislature was approving yet another increase in the cigarette tax, which will raise the price of a pack to $7. True, the higher tax is being touted as a way to discourage smoking, which it may well do to some degree. But the more cynical aspect of this tax is that lawmakers need it to help close the state budget deficit of $4.7 billion. Thus, they are counting on smokers, who most often are those with lower incomes, to help balance the books.
The double standard fools no one, including those youngsters who might be curious about smoking. It would be better to send a consistent message against smoking by not relying on tobacco sales and enacting a progressive tax increase, such as the one Assembly Democrats proposed for millionaires. How much better that approach than to target a shrinking constituency that is rapidly losing its say in Albany. ISSUE:A new campaign asks supermarkets to stop selling cigarettes.THE STAKES:The state shouldn't have it both ways on this issue.

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Study: Banning Smoking Increases Drunken Driving
Monday, April 07, 2008

MADISON  —  Enacting city smoking bans appears to increase drunken driving, according to a new national study of arrests by Wisconsin researchers.

Fatal accidents involving alcohol increased after communities banned public smoking, the study to be released by the Journal of Public Economics found. The authors attributed the increase to people driving farther to drink, either to a place with an outdoor smoking area or a city without a ban.

“The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents,” the study says.

The researchers, Scott Adams, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Chad Cotti, now at the University of South Carolina, said they were surprised by the results.

“We thought we would see a reduction,” Adams said. “Our first thought was, ‘Throw it away, it must be wrong.’”

But it wasn’t, he said.

The study looks at highway fatalities from 2001 to 2005 involving at least one driver with blood alcohol content over 0.08. It compares those in cities and counties with bans to crashes in surrounding areas without bans. It found an increase in accidents after smoking bans were enacted, both in ban areas and near boundary lines.

Smoke Free Wisconsin Executive Director Maureen Busalacchi objected to linking the increase in accidents to smoking bans, saying people may travel to drink for many reasons.

“How in the world you would figure out where people are traveling unless you are interviewing them?” she asked.

The results were similar nationwide, except in New England, which has many smoking bans, Adams said. A well-enforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases because people would have no reason to travel to drink, he said.

The study did not include Wisconsin because Appleton and its ban covered too small an area and data collection started before Madison banned smoking in 2005, Adams said.

Fitchburg’s smoking ban started April 1, and Eau Claire’s will start July 1. Marshfield residents approved a ban Tuesday that will become law within 30 days.

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For one, smoking a palliative for high prices

    Do you know why I smoke? Let me tell you, every time I drive past a gas station and see the price of gasoline going up, I feel both my left and right temples start to pound. I look into the rear-view mirror and see that my face is beat red. High blood pressure— yes!
    Every time I open my National Grid bill, the same thing happens, so I light a cigarette and instantly calm down, possibly saving my life from a major stroke.
    The April 3 Gazette reported that New York would now be the highest state as far as cigarette taxes are concerned — really, no kidding? Why am I not surprised?
    I’m going to fight back by not voting in any more elections, either locally or nationwide, and I will take this promise to the grave with me!
    JOHN AINI JR.
    Schenectady

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Pay ‘em If You Smoke ‘em
April 7, 2008 at 6:11 pm by Jay Jochnowitz, State Editor

If you were thinking about buying up all those soon-to-be relatively cheap smokes before New York’s excise tax goes up $1.25, buy soon: the state plans to retroactively tax the stock that retailers and wholesalers have on hand.

Budget Division spokesman Jeff Gordon said the “floor stocks tax,” as it’s called, has been done in the past and is used to insure that consumers are charged a consistent tax. The new tax would take effect June 3. Retailers and wholesalers wouldn’t have to pay the higher tax on all their inventory at once, Gordon noted: 25 percent would come due in August, with the rest due by the end of the year.

The New York Association of Convenience Stores sees it differently, with its president, James Calvin, saying the state plans to “strong-arm” tobacco sellers to pay the higher tax on cigarettes they’ve already bought. In a news release, the group said it would be a “cash flow nightmare” for businesses, and that the state tax department ”would send inspectors to retail stores to look over their shoulders Gestapo-style and make sure they accurately report their inventory for floor stocks tax purposes.”

Calvin also ripped the state for failing to enforce the collection of sales taxes on cigarettes sold in Native American shops to non-Indians, “but they are gung-ho to get out there and harass the non-Indian retailers that have been dutifully collecting and remitting these taxes for years. It should be renamed the Department of Double Standards.”

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SACRAMENTO - Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way.

The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent.

Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction.

Quoted from JoAnn

Some stores have said that the tax won't go into effect until sometime in May or June. They have to sell what they purchased previous to the new tax.

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What will state do for funds as smokers quit?
First published: Sunday, April 20, 2008

In response to Dan Renaud's letter "Cigarette tax boost sends a bad message" of April 13:
I couldn't agree more with what he had to say. I am a nonsmoker, but I can't help sympathizing with those addicted to cigarettes. For now because of their addiction, they will pay whatever it takes (high taxes or not).
     
Eventually, though, the number of smokers will decline as the price of cigarettes continues to increase. What happens then? Where will the state get that tax money? We can't be so gullible as to believe the state will function without it.
Be afraid, nonsmokers, be very afraid.
KAREN HOTCHKISS North Greenbush

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Impending tobacco tax hike offers good opportunity to quit

    The cost of cigarettes is going up by $1.25 a pack on June 3. Smokers might want to take the time to smell the lovely June roses as they breathe more easily when they quit smoking.
    Good things happen when someone quits — easier breathing, more energy, lower risk of heart attacks, a better sense of smell and taste, and walking without getting out of breath. Quitting will bring on cleaner lungs and extra cash. There are all sorts of special savings for these quitters — starting with their lives!
    High cigarette prices make lots of smokers quit. Smokers should take advantage of this money-saving idea. Help is available with the New York State Smokers’ Quitline. It offers free coaching and quit plans, free nicotine patches, gum and lozenges, free tips and information, and free online help. The toll-free Quitline number is 1-866-NYQUITS (1-866-697-8487). More information is available on the Quitline Web site at http://www.nysmokefree.com.
    Smokers: Quit now and get out with those June roses.
    KATHY BUTTARO
    Colonie     

Quoted from Shadow

People are going to start bringing in cigarettes to NYS from the southern states again where the prices are cheaper and there is no tax on them. The old black market smuggling will be used again.

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Fuming over New York’s cigarette tax

    New York has the highest tax on cigarettes. Why?
    Nonsmokers and the government are trying to control people. This tax is not taxing everyone. It just isn’t fair. It’s a legal substance, and if people choose to smoke, then let them. Fast food, candy, soda and alcohol are also bad for us. Maybe, they should tax those items, too. Health care is rising because people eat so unhealthfully. Don’t blame it on smokers.
    The government is causing many people to leave the state. Is the plan to push out the middle class and the poor people, to make this a wealthy state? The government officials can fi nd money from other resources if they spent more time on it. Stop trying to control people and take things [away]. I think it is hypercritical.
Alcohol is also very unhealthy. Ask an alcoholic at what age they started drinking, and most of them say between 12 and 14. What does that tell you?
We all know that government doesn’t care about the people — only money. There are very many people out there who aren’t happy about this and want some answers.
SUE MIZEJEWSKI
Niskayuna

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CAPITOL
Cigarette tax called a success
Smoker’s group calls it harassment
BY VALERIE BAUMAN The Associated Press

    New York smokers have been sent outside in all kinds of weather, coughed at in disdain, and now they are burdened with the most expensive cigarette taxes in the nation. Now, to add cost to injury, the state is declaring its highest-in-the-nation cigarette tax a success.

    New York Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines says the evidence is in the spike in calls to the state’s Smoker’s Quitline. The number of people seeking help to quit smoking quadrupled during the week of June 2, when the full $2.75-a-pack tax kicked in, to nearly 10,000 calls. Fewer than 2,300 people called for help during the same week in 2007.

    The number of requests for free nicotine replacement therapy starter kits also rose sharply. Smokers calling the Quitline requested nearly 7,900 kits that week, compared with 1,722 requested during the same week last year, according to the Health Department.

    “Not everyone that tries, quits,” Daines said. “We estimate about 140,000 New Yorkers will successfully quit smoking. We may have more than a million try to cut down or stop, but this is how you get people to try: give them multiple chances and multiple reasons to stop.”

    The increase that took effect June 3 sent the tax from $1.25 to $2.75 per pack. In most of the state, cigarettes range between $6 and $8 a pack depending on brand, and store price. They can cost as much as $10 in New York City, which has its own tax.

    Michigan has a $2 tax per pack. Virginia and Kentucky have a tax of 30 cents per pack, both ranking 47th in the nation, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.

    Audrey Silk, who heads NYC Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, says the initial increase quitline calls doesn’t realistically represent how many people will become nonsmokers.

    “No matter the goal, it’s disgusting that any group would actually boast that coercive government — this time through the hammer of taxation — to beat a class of society enjoying a legal product into submission is ‘successful’,” Silk said.

    “What is really coercive is the disease that tobacco causes,” Daines said. “I’ve seen people die prematurely, lose their loved ones and be confined to home.”

    Cigarette smoking kills about 400,000 people in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 45 million U.S. adults are smokers, though the prevalence has fallen dramatically since the 1960s.

    “The reason it’s not unfair is because this tax is helping to make the price that the consumers pay begin to reflect the real cost that cigarettes pose on society as a whole,” said Russell Sciandra, of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York. “If they actually had to pay for all the medical care and lost productivity that cigarettes cost in our society, cigarettes would cost more than $12 a pack.”

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State Eyes Another Approach for Taxing Cigarettes

June 22, 2008
State officials are considering a new approach to collect taxes on sales of tax-free cigarettes sold by Indian retailers.

Negotiators for the state Senate and Assembly tell the Buffalo News they are working on a deal that would make it illegal for tobacco manufacturers to sell cigarettes to any wholesaler who won't stop selling tax-free cigarettes to retailers on the Indian reservations in New York.

Supporters say the state could reap more than $400 million in cigarette excise taxes currently lost to tax-free sales.

Tax-avoidance schemes are expected to worsen since the state recently raised its excise tax to $2.75 per pack.

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Main Entry: 2sovereign
Variant(s): also sovran
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English soverain, from Anglo-French soverein, from Vulgar Latin *superanus, from Latin super over, above — more at over
Date: 14th century
1 a: superlative in quality : excellent b: of the most exalted kind : supreme c: having generalized curative powers d: of an unqualified nature : unmitigated e: having undisputed ascendancy : paramount
2 a: possessed of supreme power b: unlimited in extent : absolute c: enjoying autonomy : independent
3: relating to, characteristic of, or befitting a sovereign
synonyms see free
— sov·er·eign·ly adverb

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Quoted from JRaup

  
But here's a question, what happens to all those revenues if people do stop buying cigarettes?  Where/how will the State make up those revenues?

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raise the taxes on fuels......

Quoted from MobileTerminal

Why not ALCOHOL/BEER?????  

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Quoted from MobileTerminal

I still don't understand why they'll tax cigarettes so much but won't add a nickle to a beer. Think of the $ they'd raise!