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The results of an investigation by the FTC show that the distributors, affiliated to Japan Tobacco International (JTI), held three meetings last May in which they decided to raise the prices of 36 products from June, including Mild Seven cigarettes, the prices of which were increased from NT$660 per carton to NT$680. [1 USD = 29.3557 TWD]
Also in the meetings, the distributors agreed to set aside NT$10 to NT$15 from every carton of cigarettes sold and deposit the funds in accounts they held separately in a Taipei City bank, as a form of insurance to make sure they all stuck to the terms of their price-fixing agreement, the FTC said.
The distributors decided that the deposits could only be withdrawn after three months, and accountants were hired to supervise the distributors to make sure they deposited the money regularly into the accounts, the investigation revealed.
According to FTC spokeswoman Shih Hui-fen, the commission began a probe into the case last June after receiving tip-offs from informers.
The distributors were questioned in July as part of the investigation, prompting them to drop the prices of their products over the following months, Shih said.
References: Taiwan fines Japan tobacco firms for price-fixing
Source: Intellasia | Asia One, intellasia.net, 3/5/2011; Taiwan fines Japan tobacco distributors for price-fixing, By Hsieh Jiun-wei and Y.F. Low: "31 Tobacco Distributors Fined For Price-fixing", Text of report in English by Taiwanese Central News Agency website, reportlinker.com, 3/2/2011.
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Taiwanese authorities - price fixing of tobacco prices by distrtibutors affiliated with JTI..
Cancer Research UK - Lung cancer rates have more than doubled for women over 60 since the mid-1970s..
Overall, the number of women diagnosed with lung cancer has risen from around 7,800 cases in 1975 to more than 17,500 in 2008. Figures for men went from 23,400 over-60s diagnosed in 1975, falling to 19,400 in 2008, with rates showing a similar large drop.
The charity said 5,700 women over 60 were diagnosed with lung cancer in 1975, compared with 15,100 in 2008.
In the late 1980s, lung cancers in women in their 60s plateaued, and even started to fall. But they began to rise again in 2002. However cancer rates among women in their 40s did fall between 1975 and 2008.
Smoking causes around 90% of lung cancers, and CRUK wants more efforts to be put into anti-smoking measures.
Jean King, Cancer Research UK's director of tobacco control, said: "Around nine in 10 cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking and one in five people still smoke, so it's vital that work continues to support smokers to quit and protect young people from being recruited into an addiction that kills half of all long term smokers. "In particular we want displays in shops covered up so that young people are no longer being exposed to this form of tobacco marketing."
CRUK - Lung cancer - survival statistics.
Related.. Lung cancer patients who quit smoking double their survival chances..
Reference: Lung cancer rates have more than doubled for women over 60 since the mid-1970s, figures show BBC News Health, 3/6/2011. .
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Middletown Ohio School District - tobacco products on campus prohibited..
The revised policies passed last week clarified that smoking was not to take place anywhere on school property — not just inside Middletown buildings. Theoretically, a staff member or parent attending a school event could previously exit the building to smoke outside or in their vehicles. This is no longer the case. Additionally, staff members are not to use smokeless tobacco products of any kind on school grounds.
Board member Chris Fiora was at odds with the policy change over staffers and eventually voted against it. It passed 4-1 on Feb. 28. He argued that if secondhand smoke is a non-factor — as is the case smoking alone — the board shouldn’t be in the practice of regulating school employees’ behavior.
Matt Teleha: “I would think young people would look to teachers to model,” he said. “I would say this is a very good thing.” Teleha added this makes financial sense for the district because those who lead healthier lifestyles generally boast decreased health premiums.
Board member Katie McNeil: “The bottom line is that we’re an educational institution,” she said. “We can’t be hypocrites here — the kids see right through you.”
Reference: School district’s revised smoking policy garners supporters, critics by Andy Sedlak, Staff Writer, Middletown Journal, 3/6/2011.
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OHIO Supreme Court in an unanimous decision - governor could legally snatch funds originally intended for anti-tobacco programs..;
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco confirms Camel Dissolvables being pulled from all 3-test markets..;
Ohio - R.J. Reynolds will no longer test market dissolvable tobacco products here but will add more cities next month ..;
Cuyahoga County, OHIO (where Cleveland is) cigarette use lowest in state at 15%..;
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OHIO - smoking ban should be strengthened NOT weakened..:
Ohio - Supreme Court rules in favor of R.J. Reynolds in Rolling Stones magazine multi-page ad..;
OHIO - Supreme Court to hear the appeal in its case seeking to preserve tobacco funds..;
OHIO - smoking complaints have dropped each year since the start of smoking ban..;
OHIO - judge stops collection of fines against a bar accused of allowing customers to smoke..;
OHIO - Legacy Foundation asks Supreme Court to hear appeal..;
OHIO - American Legacy Foundation will appeal decision to allow state to use tobacco funds..;
Ohio - enforcement of existing smoking ban a must..;
OHIO - appeals court rules state can use money set aside for tobacco prevention..;
OHIO - judge rules money can not be diverted from anti-tobacco fund..;
Ohio - state will provide NO funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs..;
Ohio - don't cut spending on anti-tobacco programs it will cost the state much more in the long run..;
Ohio youth are using cigars and smokeless tobacco products and it is a continuously growing problem...
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Georgia - tobacco tax possible increase - now at 37 cents per pack..
“We don’t think that the 31 cents goes far enough,” said Dan Curran, spokesman for a coalition that includes the American Heart and Lung Association and the American Cancer Society. “Raising the tax by $1 would bring in more than $354 million for the state in one year and the tax would still be below the national average of $1.45.”
The state’s cigarette tax has stood at 37 cents since 2003, when the Legislature voted to raise it from 12 cents. In January, the Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians released a set of proposals to remake the state’s tax code, including a jump in the cigarette tax. The council proposed a 31-cent-per-pack increase, which it said would generate an additional $114 million in tax revenue.
The 11-member tax reform council spent months considering the cigarette tax and other issues, said member Gerry Harkins. “The way we were looking at it was to find a [tax] rate that wasn’t the highest among the surrounding states, and something that wasn’t the lowest,” he said. “We wanted to be somewhere in between. Something that wouldn’t hit the retail establishments too hard.” “We looked at tobacco for a long time,” Harkins said. “We also considered that tobacco use does have a health cost, but it wasn’t our purview to tell the Legislature how to use the funds.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the health costs caused by smoking total $7.18 per cigarette pack sold in the United States. And the CDC estimates that smoking cost the U.S. economy $96 billion in 2009, the latest statistics available.
Georgia taxpayers spend about $550 each year per household in subsidizing health care costs for smokers, according to Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, who supports the tax increase.
He said that Georgia’s current rate is the fifth-lowest in the nation, and the health care costs of smoking put an unfair burden on nonsmokers. “I look on this increase as a user-fee for smokers, not a tax,” Stephens said. But he’s not certain that it will pass. “Most of my colleagues will look on it as a tax increase,” he said.
Representatives from both the Georgia Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots weighed in on the tobacco tax issue, and they are against it.
Cigarette tax per pack
A pack of cigarettes costs about $4.50 in Atlanta, depending on the brand and where you buy the pack. In New York, the state tax alone is $4.35, and in New York City, the total cost of a pack can exceed $9.
Federal excise tax $1.01 per pack
State excise tax:
Top five (per pack: New York $4.35, Rhode Island $3.46, Connecticut $3,
Washington $3.02, Michigan $2.52.
Bottom five (per pack): Alabama 43 cents, Georgia 37 cents, Louisiana 36 cents, Virginia 30 cents, Missouri 17 cents. (Sources: National Conference of State Legislatures, nyc.gov, AJC research)
Reference: Plan boosts cost of smokes Cigarette tax jumps 84 percent in proposal by Rich McKay, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3/6/2011.
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Department of Justice - tobacco company defendants indeed violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)...
Judge Gladys Kessler..
PM USA has "serious concerns" on Justice Dept.'s proposed "corrective statements", CSP Daily News, 32/25/2011.
Tobacco companies should admit in product warnings that they deceived the public about the dangers of smoking and manipulated their products to increase addiction, the Justice Department said Wednesday, March 2nd. The department, in the final phase of a long-running court case against leading tobacco companies, released a series of statements that it wants cigarette makers to publish about the dangers of their products.
In total, the department proposed three pages of statements that it wants the industry to publish. Many of the proposed statements essentially require the tobacco companies to say they deceived Congress and the public.
The Justice Department's submission Wednesday offered the language the agency wants included in those statements.The release of the proposed statements had been delayed because the government and the industry disagreed about when the information should be made public. Kessler ordered the information be released on Wednesday. The companies will have a chance to lodge legal objections to the government's proposal.Background:
Tobacco Cos. Ask Judge to Dismiss Racketeering Case Say Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act eliminates need for court oversight, CSP Daily News, 3/7/2011.
The Justice Department on Monday, February 1, 1999 asked for 20 million to launch its civil lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Attorney General Janet Reno said most of the money would be used to pay for 40 attorneys who would press the civil case, seeking recovery of federal funds used to treat tobaccorelated illnesses. Other officials said 5 million would be for the expected cost of expert witnesses. The Justice Department's long-running tobacco case dates back to 1999, when the Clinton administration alleged that nine tobacco companies and two related trade associations engaged in a 50-year conspiracy to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking. A nine-month trial took place in 2005.
Justice Department officials acknowledged the 20 million likely would be just a down payment on the case, which could take years to settle.
In his State of the Union address last month, President Clinton announced his intention to sue cigarette makers. But this is the first official indication of the size and cost of the governments planned effort. The lawsuit is intended to recover smokingrelated medical costs incurred through Medicare, Veterans Administration and military base hospitals, Native American medical programs and the Federal Employee Health Benefits program. Federal officials refuse to speculate about how much they may seek from the tobacco industry. They have not yet decided when, where or how they will initiate the legal action. Justice Department lawyers have only begun to explore potential legal approaches.(Justice Department wants 20 million to sue tobacco industry, CNN USA, 2/1/1999.
Judge Gladys Kessler serves on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She was appointed in July 1994. She was the judge who presided over the The U.S. Government's racketeering case against Big Tobacco.
The case lasted six years, and after 9 months of trial, hundreds of depositions and thousands of exhibits, on August 17, 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the Government had proven its case and found that the tobacco company defendants had indeed violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Judge Kessler ruled that:
* Defendants knew for fifty years or more that cigarette smoking caused disease, but repeatedly denied that smoking caused adverse health effects. Defendants publicly distorted and minimized the hazards of smoking for decades.
* Defendants concealed and suppressed research data and other evidence showing nicotine is addictive, and withheld information about their internal research on addiction, from the American public, the government, and the public health community, including the United States Surgeon General. The Defendants acted this way to maintain profits by keeping people smoking and attracting new consumers, to avoid iability, and prevent regulation of the industry.
* Defendants falsely denied that they can and do control the level of nicotine delivered to smokers to create and sustain addiction.
* Defendants falsely marketed and promoted low tar/"light" cigarettes as less harmful than "full flavor" cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain corporate revenues.
* From the 1950s to the present, different tobacco companies using different methods have intentionally marketed cigarettes to young people under the age of 21 in order to recruit "replacement smokers" who would ensure the future economic viability of the Tobacco Industry.
* Defendants publicly denied, while internally acknowledging, that secondhand tobacco smoke is hazardous to nonsmokers.
* At various times, Defendants attempted to, and did suppress and conceal scientific research and destroy documents relevant to their public and litigation positions.
In May, 2009, a U.S. federal Appeals Court upheld Judge Kessler's racketeering verdict. All three judges on the panel affirmed that evidence showed that the U.S. cigarette companies had systematically lied for decades to hide the dangers of smoking, and were guilty of fraud and conspiracy to mislead the public. (U.S. appeals court agrees tobacco companies lied by Diane Bartz, Reuters, 5/22/2009.
Reference: DOJ Wants Tobacco Companies To Admit Their Deception, by Brent Kendall (brent.kendall@ dowjones.com, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES,
Some related news briefs:
February 22, 2010 - U.S. federal govt and 3-cigarette makers asked the Supreme Court to review racketeering verdict..;
May 22, 21009 - U.S. appeals court fines tobacco companies lied..;
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