SF judge upholds city's cigarette pack surcharge

A San Francisco judge has upheld the city's 20-cent-per-pack surcharge on cigarettes.
Superior Court Judge Ronald Quidachay ruled on Monday that the additional charge was a fee and not a tax and therefore did not need to be approved by voters.
Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA and some local retailers had disputed that.
The 20-cent charge was the brainchild of former Mayor Gavin Newsom, who said it was intended to cover what it cost the city to clean up discarded cigarette butts.
Philip Morris had argued that the surcharge was not reasonably related to the city's actual cleanup costs.
Philip Morris spokesman Steve Callahan said the company was disappointed with the ruling and considering its appellate options.

Smokers, sellers doubt cigarette pack scares will work

It will be more difficult to overlook anti-smoking messages on cigarette packs when jarring images including damaged lungs and a smoker with a tracheotomy incision start showing up prominently in 2012.
Mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the photographs and messages chosen for the campaign are sparking advance conversation.
The issue has added importance in Ohio, which has drastically reduced state funding for anti-smoking campaigns despite a smoking rate of more than 22 percent in the adult population and 40 percent among state Medicaid recipients.
Some smokers in the Dayton area, those who sell cigarettes and even those who teach and study cigarette marketing and advertising on area campuses all expressed doubt that the new scare tactics will influence the smoking rate.
“It won’t make any difference,” said Ed Alkhateeb, owner of Smokers Saver Inc. on South Smithville Road in Dayton.
“They have had those same kinds of pictures on packs in Europe and the Middle East for more than five years. I travel back and forth often. People who smoked there still smoke,” said the native Palestinian, who lives in Kettering.
A few miles south at Rich, formerly known as Smokes for Less, on Wilmington Pike in Kettering, the clerk at the cash register had the same opinion.
“People will smoke regardless,” said Chanel Rutledge, who has worked at the store for two years. “Some people who have had tracheotomies still come in to buy cigarettes now. So do people who are on oxygen. They are going to keep coming in,” the Dayton resident said.
“Pictures won’t stop them. The one thing that might is price,” Rutledge said. “If it went up to $7 a pack, that would have some impact.”
Specials at Smoker’s Saver included $5.15 for a pack of Marlboro and $5.33 for a pack of Basic. Posters near the entrance advertised Camel, with its famous animal logo, and American Spirit cigarettes, touted as “100 percent additive free.”
The American Spirit icon is an American Indian figure in a chief’s headdress smoking a long white cylinder like a peace pipe stem with a white eagle feather on the end, instead of smoke.
There were no repellent images or messages in view, a situation that will change with the FDA requirements.
“I haven’t really thought about the changes that are coming,” said Alkhateeb, who has sold tobacco products for 16 years. “I don’t think it will have much effect. Business is steady.”
The FDA’s stated mission is to increase awareness of health risks associated with smoking, to encourage smokers to quit and to “empower youth to say no to tobacco.”
The government agency chose nine photos and rejected 27, based on research into their effectiveness. Starting in September 2012, they will occupy 50 percent of the front and rear panels of each cigarette pack, along with statements about the dangers of smoking.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 46 million people or 20.6 percent of all United States adults ages 18 and older are smokers. The rate is higher among men (23.5 percent) than women (17.9 percent).
Robert Payne, 26, of Kettering, who bought a pack of Basics menthol and a pack of Winston regular at Rich, said the new images “won’t change anything for people like me who have been smoking for years. It might deter younger kids from doing it, but it might not have stopped me. I started at 16 because other kids were doing it.”
Another customer, Rex Smith of Centerville, said the new packs “may keep kids from taking up the habit, but they showed us photographs like that when I was in school and that didn’t stop me.”
He bought a week’s supply of electronic-cigarette refills because the cost is only one-third to one-fourth of regular cigarettes.
“Cigarettes cause cancer, but they are far from the only thing that’s bad for us,” he said. “Why stop there? Why not require a picture of a fat guy on every cheeseburger?”
Lisa Selvia of Kettering, a board member of the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors who teaches graphic design at Sinclair Community College and the Art Institute of Ohio, doesn’t smoke and said she considers herself “very anti-smoking.”
“From a graphic-design perspective, I think we’ve long been inured to the printed warnings on cigarette packs. Words are easy to ignore,” she said. “So, a change makes sense.”
Members of the marketing faculties at Wright State University and the University of Dayton cited studies that show people will turn away from images that are too graphic.
“It’s like looking at a scary movie,” said Tracy Harmon, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Dayton, who co-authored a 2011 article on the need for education about and regulation of hookah smoking.
Harmon said the FDA’s campaign “will be more effective for nonsmokers because smoking is a socially embedded behavior.”
She said one reason governments may be eliminating funding for anti-smoking messages may be that “they aren’t seeing the outcome they want to see. This is putting the onus on the tobacco companies. The government won’t be paying for the packaging.”

Health officials stub out 4 hookah lounges

The City Health Department of the Chennai Corporation recently ordered the closure of four hookah lounges that functioned illegally in posh Nungambakkam and brought an estimated 20 more such illegal lounges under its scanner after reports of rampant use of drugs there.

According to civic body sources, the decision to close the joints was taken on two counts -one, flouting the government ban on smoking in public places; and two, they had license only to run a restaurant, food court or coffee joints.
Food inspectors of the City Health Department have also collected samples of substances used at those four hookah lounges for detailed lab analysis.
“We deem the 25-odd hookah lounges in the city limit as illegal as the civic body never issued licenses for them per se. The licenses they obtained were meant for running either restaurants or coffee shops only,” a senior official of the Corporation told Express.

Though there was no official word on what actually led to the crackdown, it was reliably learnt that rampant use of drugs, such as marijuana and hashish, was the trigger.
According to a regular visitor to one of the hookah lounges in the city, the per hour charge is between Rs 300 and Rs 400.
Drugs are provided on the pretext of offering different flavours to enhance pleasure.
The lounges have a young clientele. College students and IT professionals, including a considerable number of girls, are regulars, sources said.

“If the samples lifted from those four lounges are found to contain drugs, their (restaurant or coffee shop) licenses would be revoked immediately under the Madras City Municipal Corporation Act -1919,” civic body sources said.

Fauzi ups offensive against smokers, big tobacco

Governor Fauzi Bowo pledged to make Jakarta a smoke-free city by taking more initiatives, including reducing the space allocated for cigarette ads across the capital.

“We can’t have an outright ban on cigarette ads, but we can and will certainly reduce the number of the ads put up by cigarette manufacturers,” Fauzi said Sunday.

He also called for greater participation from Jakarta residents in keeping a close eye on the implementation of a 2010 gubernatorial banning smoking in public spaces.

The governor made the remarks at an event to observe National Children’s Day at the National Monument Park in Central Jakarta.

The event, which was organized by NGO Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) and was titled “Jakarta My City, Free from Cigarette Smoke”, was attended by more than 1,500 children from the capital.

At a question-and-answer session, the children also told Fauzi about the widespread prevalence of smoking.

One of the children, 10-year-old Rahayu from Kampung Rawa in Johar Baru, Central Jakarta, said that teachers at her school smoked on school premises.

Fauzi told Rahayu that she and her classmates should force the teacher to quit smoking or leave
his class.

“Tell him you will cut classes and go home instead. Tell him the Jakarta governor told you to do so,”
Fauzi said.

In May last year, Fauzi signed a gubernatorial decree making it illegal to smoke inside certain buildings and workplaces in the city.

The decree was an amendment to a 2005 bylaw that allowed smoking in designated areas in buildings.

The decree bans smoking in areas including health centers, workplaces, places of worship, public transportation and areas dedicated to education and children’s activities.

Fakta chairman Azas Tigor Nainggolan said children were the most vulnerable to the dangers of smoking.

“This why we have enlisted children in our campaign against smoking,” Azas said.

He said the Jakarta administration was heading on the right track by issuing the smoking ban, a policy, which if properly enforced, could create a safe and healthy environment for children.

Fakta is a part oof the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Jakarta. Earlier this month, the Central Jakarta District Court gave the go-ahead to the coalition to defend the 2010 gubernatorial decree against a lawsuit by a group who claimed the policy discriminated against smokers.

The Jakarta administration has issued more 700 warnings to building managers as the capital steps up the enforcement of the smoking ban.

The Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) warned building managers to abide by the regulation or face being publicly named as being in violation.

The agency could temporarily close buildings that continue to flout the regulation and eventually revoke their permits.

Indonesia is among the world’s three largest tobacco consuming nations, with studies showing that tobacco consumption grew 26 percent in the last 15 years.

Cigarettes no longer No. 1 seller in commissaries

Cheese has overtaken cigarettes as the top selling item category in military commissaries, another milestone in the long slide of tobacco sales in those venues.

By the end of April, cheese had edged out cigarettes with $106 million worth of sales in the previous 52 weeks, compared with $105 million for cigarettes, data from the Defense Commissary Agency show.

Cigarette dollar sales in commissaries dropped 12 percent overall compared with the same period in the previous year, more than the 8 percent drop in overall commercial cigarette industry sales, according to commissary officials. The number of cartons sold was down by 16 percent, compared with an 8 percent drop in carton sales industrywide.

Tobacco sales overall in the first nine months of this fiscal year also are down 12 percent compared with the same period in the previous year.

The picture is slightly different in the exchange stores. Tobacco sales in Navy exchanges are holding their own, and sales of other tobacco products, such as cigars and smokeless tobacco, have increased by 20 percent.

Navy stores sold 4.1 million units of these products in 2010, compared with 3.4 million in 2009, according to Navy Exchange Service Command spokeswoman Kristine Sturkie. Cigarette carton sales were down about 1 percent to about 10.9 million in 2010.

Tobacco sales through the Army and Air Force Exchange Service are down about 2.4 percent this year compared with the same period last year, according to AAFES spokesman Judd Anstey.

But those figures also include commissary sales on Army and Air Force bases because the exchange services act as concessionaires to commissaries, providing all their tobacco.

Traditionally, few Navy and Marine commissaries have sold cigarettes. Since tobacco sales have dropped about 12 percent in commissaries, it is unclear whether sales have actually increased in AAFES exchange stores, given the comparatively small decline in overall AAFES tobacco sales.

In contingency areas, including Iraq and Afghanistan, AAFES saw a 13 percent drop in tobacco sales in 2010, and the trend continues this year, although fewer troops were in those areas than the year before.

At press time, information was not available from Marine Corps exchange officials about their tobacco sales.

The national trend in tobacco sales has seen a decline in cigarette sales while smokeless and cigar sales have been growing, said Greg Mathe, spokesman for Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and John Middleton.

A nationwide push to snuff out smoking, a concerted education campaign on many fronts in the military community, and tightened restrictions on smoking areas all are likely contributors to declining sales in commissaries.

For years, commissaries sold tobacco products at steep discounts, up to 76 percent below commercial retail prices. Discounts in the exchanges ranged up to 51 percent. But in 1996, defense officials directed commissaries to reduce the tobacco discount, which boosted prices to the same level charged by the exchanges.

The current policy, dating from 2000, requires commissary tobacco prices to be discounted no more than 5 percent below the most competitive commercial price in the local community.

In 1996, almost $465 million worth of tobacco products were sold in commissaries; in 2010, that figure was down to $124.5 million.

According to the Pentagon’s 2008 Survey of Health-Related Behaviors among active-duty members, 31 percent said they had smoked in the last 30 days, down from 34 percent in 2002.

In 1980, 51 percent of troops surveyed said they smoked.

Man Vomits Bag of Cigarettes in Kotzebue Jail

Alaska State Troopers say a fight in Noorvik Sunday morning produced assault charges against three people -- as well as an unexpected stash of smokes.

According to an AST dispatch, troopers in Kotzebue received reports of a disturbance in Noorvik at about 5:15 a.m. Sunday. Investigation of the incident revealed that Noorvik residents Jack Wells, 18; Thomas Nay, 28; and Johnathon Carter, 20, as well as a number of family members and friends, had been involved in a fight over stolen items.

“During the altercation a knife, a rifle, baseball bats, and snowmobile parts were used as weapons,” responding troopers wrote.

Buy Camel cigarettes for cheapest price.

Wells was arrested on three counts of third-degree assault, while Nay and Carter were each arrested on one count of third-degree assault and four counts of fourth-degree assault. All three were taken to Kotzebue Regional Jail for remand pending arraignment.

After being remanded, Carter became ill and vomited up a small bag containing two cigarettes, which he had swallowed in anticipation of being arrested by troopers. Carter received an additional charge of promoting contraband.

Troopers are continuing to investigate the disturbance and stolen items, and say additional suspects are likely to be charged.

Lorillard recalls some cigarette packs

Cigarette maker Lorillard Inc. is recalling some packs of the non-menthol version of its Newport brand because the tobacco inside may contain small pieces of plastic.
The nation's third-largest tobacco company announced the recall late Tuesday upon discovering the foreign substance and receiving guidance from the Food and Drug Administration.

Buy cheap cigarettes tax free from Europe.

The Greensboro, N.C., company said that at this point, no plastic has been found in any of the cigarettes. But if burned, the plastic may create respiratory discomfort or irritation.
It was unclear how many packs were affected but the company said the cigarettes were made over two days in late June.
No other products are affected, including Newport menthol cigarettes and other brands.