From: SMOKEFREE@compuserve.com
Date: Thu, 06/12/08
For clarification, my comment in the following news article was in response
to misleading statements "Tobacco kills, no matter if it's in a cigarette,
a cigar, a snuff can or a roll-your-own" and "Lower federal and state taxes
on these non-cigarette products is keeping tobacco addiction "affordable"
and encouraging preventable disease and death" by Greg Connolly in a press
release at:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/decline-in-ci
garette-smoking-in-offset-by-use-of-other-tobacco-products.html
Smokers have a right to be informed that smokefree tobacco/nicotine
products are less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes, and public health
agencies/professionals have an ethical duty to truthfully inform smokers
about the comparable health risks of different tobacco/nicotine products.
And since cigarettes are far more hazardous than smokefree tobacco/nicotine
products, taxing cigarettes at a higher rate (than smokefree products) is
sound public health policy.
Bill Godshall
- - -
Smokeless use on rise as cigarette sales fall
By Richard Craver
Winston-Salem Journal
June 12, 2008
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/jun/12/smokeless-use-on-rise-as-cig
arette-sales-fall/?business
Smoking may be in decline in the United States, but overall tobacco use
isn't, according to a report from the Harvard School of Public Health.
The report, published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, focused on the sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products
from 1998 to 2007.
"Since 1998, tobacco sales in the United States have declined by 2 percent
a year, which has been hailed as an indicator that smoking itself is on the
decline," the researchers said. The researchers cited cigarette sales
declining 18 percent from 21.1 billion packs in 2000 to 17.4 billion packs
in 2007.
But 30 percent of the decline in cigarette sales was offset by the "robust"
sale of small cigars, snuff, snus and roll-your-own products, the
researchers found.
Those products typically have lower retail prices and have a significantly
lower excise-tax rate than cigarettes. For example, the federal excise tax
on a pack of cigarettes is 39 cents, compared with 4 cents on a pack of
small cigars.
"The weekly cost for a typical user of a premium moist-snuff brand is 55
percent less than for a typical cigarette smoker," the researchers said.
"Thus, the apparent magnitude of overall decline in tobacco use in the
United States may be illusory," said Greg Connolly, the lead researcher and
the director of the Tobacco Control Research program at the Harvard school.
The major U.S. tobacco manufacturers, led by Reynolds American Inc., have
been aggressively developing and marketing smokeless products, as well as
buying smokeless-tobacco companies, to counter the decline in their
cigarette sales.
For example, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is testing its Camel Snus product in
17 markets, including the Triad and many major metropolitan areas. The
tobacco is pasteurized -- not fermented -- and does not require the
consumer to spit, Reynolds said.
Sales of other tobacco products from 2000 to 2007 increased by 1.1 billion
cigarette pack equivalents -- an estimate the researchers based on the
products' tobacco and nicotine content -- of 714 million in the moist-snuff
category, 256 million in roll-your-own and 130 million in small cigars.
"Lower federal and state taxes on these noncigarette products are keeping
tobacco addiction ‘affordable' and encouraging preventable disease and
death," Connolly said. "All forms of tobacco should be taxed equally, and
state campaigns to curb tobacco use should address this loophole for
death."
But in an April 9, 2007, article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Connolly
held out promise for noncigarette products.
"If we can get everyone to switch to smokeless tomorrow, it would be a
public-health miracle," he said. "But that type of thinking is totally
unrealistic. It is a fantasy."
Danny McGoldrick, the vice president of research for the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids, said that his group favors the raising of excise taxes
on all tobacco products "to help discourage smokers from trading one
addiction for another. Those products may be less harmful, but they are not
harmless."
Smokeless products are drawing support from some anti-smoking groups as a
less-hazardous way to consume tobacco. Those groups, as well as Reynolds,
want any proposed Federal Drug Administration regulation of tobacco
products to allow for the marketing of smokeless products as reduced risk
compared with cigarettes.
"We should not delay in allowing snus to compete with cigarettes for market
share, and we should be prepared to accurately inform smokers about the
relative risks of cigarettes, snus and approved smoking-cessation
medications," said Jonathan Foulds, the director of the School of Public
Health Tobacco Dependence program at the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey.
Maura Payne, a spokeswoman with Reynolds, said that tobacco consumers are
weighing all kinds of factors, including price, comparing risks of products
and when and how they can use the products.
"It is simply not sound public policy to use excise taxes as a means of
dissuading people from switching to lower-risk categories from higher-risk
categories if they want to continue using tobacco products," Payne said.
Bill Godshall, the executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania, said that
it is "unethical" of Connolly to tell smokers that noncigarette products
are just as dangerous as cigarettes.
"Although smokeless tobacco is just as addictive as cigarettes, and should
not be used by those who are not addicted to nicotine, cigarettes are about
100 times deadlier than smokeless-tobacco products," he said.
Stephen Pope, the chief global-market strategist with Cantor Fitzgerald
Europe, said that price eventually plays a determining factor for tobacco
users.
"We have seen examples of how real hardened smokers will cling onto their
favorite brand through a few small price changes, be it in the
manufacturers' price or by tax increases," Pope said. "However, eventually
the price pain will be too much even for them, and there will be a
migration into a cheaper offering.
"For the smoker looking for a quick rush, then snuff has been seen as a
cigarette substitute," he said. "Whereas, I have no doubt that there is a
whole new approach and marketing ploy in play regarding cigars."
Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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