Smokers Rights News - Smoking Lobby Forum for Smokers Rights and Smoking Bans
2
JUL

Workplace Smoking Ban in Canada

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Workplace.ca, 2003-07-02





(WINNIPEG) A provincial task force is recommending a total ban on workplace smoking throughout Manitoba.





The provincial Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health, which advises the labour minister on such issues, wants all workplaces to achieve a complete smoking ban in three stages. The first stage is a ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces, allowing designated smoking rooms for workers and/or clients, within 6 to 12 months of the regulation coming into force. The second stage would be a complete ban of smoking in all enclosed workplaces, without a designated smoking room, within one to two years. The third stage would completely ban smoking in all indoor and outdoor work areas, although no time frame was suggested.





The council issued a report to the Manitoba legislature’s all-party committee examining environmental tobacco smoke as part of its review of workplace health and safety issues. The committee has not indicated whether it will accept the recommendations.





"The impact of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace is one of many issues the all-party committee will have to consider," says committee chair MLA Stan Struthers. "That is why these recommendations are being included as a key component of the all-party process."





The committee’s report says that tobacco smoke is “composed of numerous carcinogens and other toxic compounds” while provincial regulations specify that exposure to airborne carcinogens must be as close to zero as possible. Employees working in enclosed places are exposed to “harmful levels” of smoke where smoking is permitted, and tobacco smoke is a “universally recognized health hazard,” the report says.


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30
JUN

Wawa, Associations and Cigarette Companies Fight Taxes

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JUNE 27, 2003 -- TRENTON, N.J. - Raising cigarette taxes will only lead to broader tax increases across all categories, according to the Enough Already Coalition, a group of New Jersey convenience store operators, retail trade associations, and tobacco companies.


A full-page ad that ran in the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger newspaper this week with the headline "Raising the cigarette tax is just the beginning," and showing a line of dominoes warned of the dangers of higher cigarette taxes. The ad says New Jersey's proposed $19.00 a carton cigarette tax will be the highest in the nation, and prompt people to buy cigarettes online or out of state. As a result, the government will collect less tax, and be forced to raise taxes on other items to make up for the lost revenue. The Enough Already Coalition urges readers to call their elected officials and tell them they oppose tax increases.


The ad was paid for by Enough Already Coalition member Philip Morris. Other members include Wawa Inc., the New Jersey Food Council's Convenience Store Council, New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association, New Jersey Restaurant Association, New Jersey Retail Merchants Association, New Jersey Wholesale Marketers Association and R.J. Tobacco.

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25
JUN

Hazards of Increasing Cigarette Taxes

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Source: Bruce Bartlett (senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis), "Taxing Cigarettes May Be Hazardous," New York Post, December 15, 1999.

Wednesday, December 15, 1999

Hazards of Increasing Cigarette Taxes

The New York State Legislature, with Gov. Pataki's blessing, is reportedly planning a 25 cent rise in the state's current 56 cents per-pack cigarette tax, giving New York the fourth-highest cigarette tax rate in the U.S. If experience is any guide, it will lead to a sharp rise in smuggling that will burden legitimate cigarette dealers and, ironically, make cigarettes more easily available for youngsters.

In 1997,then-state Attorney General Dennis Vacco estimated that the state was losing $300 million per year in revenue from cigarette bootlegging in 1997. The figure has undoubtedly risen since, due to growth of the Internet and the easy access any smoker with a computer now has to tax-free cigarettes, often sold legally from Indian reservations. One web site, www.discount-cigarettes.org, lists more than 50 sources for such cigarettes.

Criminals have long found the corridor between North Carolina and Massachusetts to be among the most lucrative for cigarette smuggling. North Carolina and Virginia tax cigarettes at just 5 cents and 2.5 cents a pack, respectively; it is easy for smugglers to buy truckloads of cigarettes in those states and distribute them at great profit in Maryland (66 cents per pack), New Jersey (80 cents), Massachusetts (76 cents) and, of course, New York.

Each of these states has seen a significant rise in smuggling after raising their cigarette taxes. For example, when New Jersey doubled its tax on Jan. 1, 1998, state officials detected an immediate rise in smuggling activity, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. After Maryland hiked its rate by 30 cents earlier this year, the Baltimore Sun reported that state officials were so overwhelmed with smuggling cases that they had to lease new storage space to hold all of the seized smokes.

The growth of such a profitable corridor for sales of smuggled cigarettes has many effects. Officials report that the smuggling business, once dominated by small-time hustlers, is now being taken over by organized groups that can ship higher volumes of cigarettes at lower cost.

The rise of smuggling also means the loss of an important element of control: established retailers that are easier to police for illegal sales to minors are being replaced by informal sales networks selling cigarettes to those of any age with cash.

In Europe, the smuggling problem has led some countries, like Sweden, to actually cut their tax rates, reducing smugglers' profits and helping keep cigarette distribution within established channels. Indeed, lower tax rates can even raise government revenue.

Any further rise in New York's cigarette tax will only exacerbate an already serious problem. Tom Stanton, director of the city Department of Finance, says smuggling is at "tidal wave" levels now. At some point, politicians simply have to accept that there is a practical limit to cigarette taxation.

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