As the Tax and Customs Board has made its battle with the black market for cigarettes this year’s priority operation, many otherwise jobless citizens in the border town of Narva have turned smuggling into a life source. The expanding black market is a result of raising the excise tax to the EU minimum, a 20 percent increase implemented in two annual increments beginning in 2011. The recession and the fact that cigarettes are three times ... Jump to full article >>

Rick Bender sat on a stage at the Ohio Statehouse fiddling with a chewing tobacco can as people stared at his disfigured face. Bender is used to it. He does this kind of thing on purpose. For the last 17 years, Bender has traveled the country, warning people of the dangers of tobacco use. Bender grew up in Kentucky and California and started using chewing tobacco at age 12. By age 26 in 1989, doctors diagnosed him with oral cancer, took out a th ... Jump to full article >>

Reducing Tobacco Taxes is Ineffective and Unsound Strategy and Puts Public Health at Risk he rampant contraband tobacco problem in Ontario needs a comprehensive solution, and cutting provincial tobacco taxes should not be part of the plan, according to the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco (OCAT). Members of the group have unanimously rejected Bill 199, a private member’s bill aimed at reducing taxation on tobacco in Ontario, which wi ... Jump to full article >>

State legislators and the governor acted illegally in taking $7 million from a 2006 tobacco-tax initiative to balance the state budget, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday. The justices rejected arguments that lawmakers are free to reallocate investment and interest income from the money raised by the tax as long as they do not touch the tax revenues themselves. Justice Michael Ryan, writing for the unanimous court, said the legislators, and ... Jump to full article >>