NYC sues Seneca cigarette dealer

Jun 29

 David Caruson  AP

NEW YORK — The City of New York filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a cigarette dealer on an Indian reservation in western New York, claiming that the business has been flouting state and federal law by shipping thousands of packs into the city without paying state or local taxes or verifying the age of the buyer.

The suit, filed in a federal court in Manhattan, targets Robert and Marcia Gordon, members of the Seneca tribe who were outspoken opponents of attempts by state and federal authorities to rein in the sale of untaxed cigarettes from reservations.

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FDA Marks Third Anniversary of Tobacco Regulations

Jun 27
A look at back, a look forward
CSP Daily News |

WASHINGTON — This month marks the third anniversary of the passage and implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the federal law that authorized the FDA to regulate cigarettes, roll-your-own and smokeless tobacco products.

Over the past three years, some of the major tobacco regulations have included the banning of the sale of cigarettes with a characterizing flavor, the prohibition of self-service displays in retail stores (except in age-restricted tobacco shops), restrictions on advertising claims and the release of nine text and graphic picture cigarette health warnings. The cigarette health warnings are now the subject of two federal lawsuits resulting in a delay of the original effective date of Sept. 22, 2012.

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Prop. 29 cigarette tax backers concede defeat

Jun 25
Marisa Lagos   San Franciso Chronicle
  • Smoke rises from a cigarette in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, June 22, 2012. Proposition 29, the California initiative to increase the tax on tobacco to pay for cancer research was snuffed out by voters as it failed 49.7 percent to 50.3 precent after remaining to close to call for more than two weeks. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press / SF
    Smoke rises from a cigarette in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, June 22, 2012. Proposition 29, the California initiative to increase the tax on tobacco to pay for cancer research was snuffed out by voters as it failed 49.7 percent to 50.3 precent after remaining to close to call for more than two weeks. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press / SF
    Smoke rises from a cigarette in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, June…

     

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AWMA Urges FDA to Avoid Imposing Burdensome New Tobacco Reporting Rules

Jun 22
AWMA News

AWMA President & CEO Scott Ramminger Wednesday urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to refrain from issuing additional onerous reporting requirements on distributors when finalizing rules on non-face-to-face sales and distribution of tobacco products.

(In the photo, Ramminger and Anne Holloway, AWMA vice president of government affairs, pause before meeting with FDA officials.)

Ramminger, addressing representatives of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, explained the role of convenience distributors in the sale of tobacco products and stressed AWMA’s role in enactment of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), which is now helping to reduce remote sales, particularly internet sales, of cigarettes for the purpose of evading appropriate taxes.

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Another article completely silent on the adverse health effects of counterfeit cigarettes: “Menthol Cigarettes Ban”

Jun 20

Editor’s Note:  The following article is representative of the tobacco stakeholder community’s failure  to recognize the  adverse health effects of counterfeit cigarettes; an event which which will  occur with mathematical certainty and one which has never been challenged by any federal agency.

Why then do TPSAC  and   a number of  academic researchers  and analysts refuse to study the adverse health effects of counterfeit cigarettes as dcoumented in several CRE  studies?  One can only speculate but it appears that a number of  researchers are more interested in preserving their financial grants than they are in telling their paymasters the straight facts.

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Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels Are Memorable, But They Won’t Reduce Smoking

Jun 18

Policymic

A  study published this week in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine suggests that graphic cigarette warning labels are more memorable than the standard text warnings that currently appear on the side of every cigarette pack.

Beginning this fall, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to slap one of the grotesque labels on every pack of cigarettes. The tobacco industry’s legal challenge may prevent the new policy from taking effect, but the researchers and media are claiming the study as evidence that the graphic warnings will reduce smoking. There’s no doubt that a picture of a man smoking through a hole in his neck is more memorable than a text warning about the dangers of tobacco, but there isn’t a bit of evidence that the shocking images will do anything to reduce cigarette consumption. 

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Hot Docs: How the Mohawk tobacco industry caught fire

Jun 12

Toronto.com

Where there’s smoke there’s ire, at least when it comes to critics of the tobacco industry on native reserves, evidenced in Ojibway filmmaker Jeff Dorn’s Smoke Traders.

The TVO-commissioned documentary, which had its world premiere at Hot Docs Thursday, screens again Friday. It will air on TVO this fall.

Dorn, who works at CTV Ottawa, spent three years filming in the Mohawk communities of Akwesasne and Kahnawake, documenting a thriving economy both among cigarette runners and the growing number of native-run cigarette factories and tobacco companies.

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Announcement From Commissioner Hamburg Announcing Selection of the Deputy Director for the Center for Tobacco Products, FDA

Jun 08

From: FDA

It is with great pleasure that I announce the selection of Richard J. Turman as the Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP’s) Deputy Director. In this important senior leadership position, Mr. Turman will be responsible for assuring that CTP accomplishes its public health goals and objectives, including implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This will involve assuring effective communications across the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CTP, within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and among stakeholders on matters related to tobacco product regulation and CTP’s regulatory authorities.

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Department of Justice Science Advisory Board on Juvenile Health Statistics

Jun 07

 Editor’s  Note:   The following article  is  from the CRE website titled:  FACA Under Fire.  CRE is submitting comments requesting that the DOJ  Science Advisory Board request that  federal  agencies  examine the adverse health effects of  counterfeit cigarettes as referenced in several  CRE reports.

 

DOJ Science Advisory Board Meets

 

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The FDA’s power over cigars

Jun 07

Los Angeles Times

Two bills in Congress would remove its authority to regulate cigars. That would be a mistake

 The 2009 federal law that required the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationto begin regulating cigarettes also gave it the option of regulating cigars. Now two bills, one in each chamber of Congress, would remove the agency’s authority over “traditional” cigars — the regular size that you’re used to, not the ones the size of cigarettes.

 

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CASAA’s comment on FDA Draft Guidance for Modified Risk Tobacco Product Applications

Jun 05

 The following is the comment letter CASAA has submitted to the FDA. CASAA encourages members to submit their own comments by the end of the day (6/4/12)  at http://www.regulations.gov/?source=govdelivery#!documentDetail;D=FDA-2012-D-0071-0001. 


Under the FDA’s Draft Guidance for MRTP Applications, it would cost any smokeless tobacco manufacturer (and any e-cigarette manufacturer if the agency “deems” they should be regulated by Chapter IX, as the FDA has stated it intends to do) tens of millions of dollars conducting unnecessary research before applying to the FDA to truthfully claim that any of its smokefree tobacco products is less hazardous than cigarettes.

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Sin tax to abet smuggling, say US business groups

Jun 04

Business Mirror

 Fernan Marasigan / Reporter
 

Two top American business groups echoed apprehensions by some Filipino legislators that the Malacañang-backed sin-tax reform bill would abet smuggling, undermine the government’s revenue growth targets and subsequently pose serious threats to national security.

The US Chamber of Commerce and the US-Asean Business Council have asked Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to consider the supposedly counterproductive and deleterious impact of House Bill (HB) 5727 that seeks to impose 1,000-percent to 1,500-percent tax increase on alcohol and tobacco products.

The bill’s principal author, Liberal Party Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya of Cavite, earlier said that smuggling would be an inevitable aftermath if the proposed law is enacted.

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