Proposals are currently being examined which would see a dramatic increase in the tax on tobacco throughout the EU region. The moves are being made after research by the World Bank showed that burning a hole in people’s pockets is the best way to reduce the level of smoking.

Experts say that the proposed increase would cut the number of smokers by an average of 10pc over the next five years.

It is thought that changes will have the biggest impact in Poland where they expect more than 20pc to give up as a result of price increases.

The proposal outlined by Taxation Commissioner, Laszlo Kovacs, is for a gradual increase in EU minimum taxation levels on cigarettes and fine-cut tobacco up to 2014.

It would also remove loopholes that allow some cigarettes or fine-cut tobacco to be presented as cigars, cigarillos or pipe tobacco and so benefit from a lower tax rate.

The plan also aims to bring tobacco taxation levels in line across all 27 EU member states.

At the moment, the difference in taxation can be as high as 600pc leading to intra-EU tobacco smuggling especially in the new member states.

The level of smuggling varies across the EU and accounts for up to 9pc of the EU tobacco market. But in some major markets this is as high as 20pc. The countries most susceptible to illegal tobacco are those closest to Russia and other markets that do not impose high tax on cigarettes.

Mr Kovacs said it would also make the taxation rules more transparent, and create a level playing field for manufacturers and give flexibility to member states to set minimum taxes.

A new study has found that manufacturers are deliberately manipulating menthol content in cigarettes to attract young people.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health found that the tobacco industry is intentionally adjusting menthol to create a milder experience for the first time smoker.

Menthol covers the harshness and irritation of cigarettes, allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes.

"For decades, the tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers," said Howard Koh, Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice at HSPH and a co-author of the paper.

A team of researchers led Jennifer M. Kreslake, a research analysis from the Tobacco Control Research Program at HSPH analysed the internal tobacco industry documents on menthol product development, and conducted laboratory tests to measure menthol content in U.S. brands, examined market research reports

She also drew data from the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual nationally representative survey among U.S. residents aged 12 years and older

The industry documents revealed that tobacco companies researched how controlling menthol levels could increase brand sales among specific groups.

The companies determined that products with higher menthol levels and stronger perceived menthol sensation suited long-term smokers of menthol cigarettes while milder brands with lower menthol levels appealed to younger smokers.

According to a 2006 study, 43.8 percent of current smokers aged 12 to 17 years reported that they used menthol cigarettes as did 35.6 percent of current smokers aged 18 to 24 years.

By contrast, 30.6 percent of smokers older than 35 years reported menthol use.

The authors suggest, "to protect the public health, tobacco products should be federally regulated, and additives such as menthol should be included in that regulation."

"This is another example of the cynical behavior of the tobacco industry to hook teens and African Americans to a deadly addiction. This is after the industry told the American public it had changed its marketing practices. The FDA bill provides the vehicle to end the hypocrisy and save the lives of the young and a targeted minority group," said Gregory N. Connolly, Professor of the Practice of Public Health and director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at HSPH.

The study appears in the online "First Look" section of the American Journal of Public Health.

The brand was first introduced in Mexico City in 2006. It remained a regional brand until recently when Tobacco One’s international marketing team finished a three-month feasibility study focusing on national expansion and consumer acceptance. During this study, Tobacco One in partnership with the Mexico City marketing firm Integra Marketing, S.A. de C.V. obtained numerous commitments that will result in expanded distribution nationwide.

Currently, the brand is sold throughout Mexico City in premier retailers. Recently, these global chains have authorized the brand to immediately expand to all of their locations nationwide. This new authorization will add approximately 90 club locations, 120 big-box style stores and 80 super-centers to the brand’s current base of participating retailers. This new rollout will feature the brand at over 4,000 cash register locations within these new stores. This program will be implemented during the months of July and August, 2008. Tobacco One, Inc. will provide the necessary resources and manpower needed to expand this brand into each targeted trade class in all major population centers throughout the country.

"Along with the new expansion, and the additional contracts currently under review, Tobacco One, Inc. expects unit volume over the next 12 months to exceed 200 million sticks (cigarettes) for the cigarette brand, resulting in revenues of over $12 million, and net earnings (EBITDA) of nearly $3 million or 25%," stated Shawn Ulizio, Tobacco One’s President and CEO. He continued, "The new brand is clearly positioned to be a market leader in Mexico’s newly emerging discount cigarette price tier, and Tobacco One is nicely positioned to dominate in this specialized tobacco category."

The village board Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance regulating and licensing businesses that sell tobacco products.

Mayor Richard Chapman said village staff will be contacting all affected businesses over the next few months and setting them up with the proper paperwork to apply for a tobacco license.

Businesses that hold a liquor license are exempt from the tobacco licensing requirements.

Chapman estimates 10 to 25 businesses, like the village’s two tobacco shops and numerous gas stations, will be affected by the new ordinance. However, he expects the transition to be easy.

"This is not a huge administrative nightmare," he said.

The purchase or renewal of a license is $250 annually.

The licensing ordinance is designed to mirror that of the village’s liquor regulations and outlines more than two dozen restrictions on whom can be issued a license. For example, those applying for a license must be a U.S. citizen, never convicted of a felony and in good standing in the community.

Chapman, who sponsored the ordinance, said it brings more attention to the people selling controlled substances.

"It gives us a little more leverage with them to make sure they’re doing the right thing," he said.

Village police will inspect each licensee and will report violations to the mayor and village administrator Kurt Carroll. Those found in violation will be subject to suspension or revocation of its license. Chapman will preside over such hearings.

Suspensions will not exceed 30 days and fines will begin at $100 for the first offense, increasing to no less than $500 for subsequent offenses.

The village has been working on the tobacco licensing policy for over a year. With no changes from the ordinance’s first reading earlier this month, the board approved the measure without significant discussion.

"These are extraordinary times, and Nevada needs to take extraordinary measures," Krolicki said Thursday by phone from Beijing, where he is heading a state trade mission.

Under his plan, the state would sell bonds and use the revenue to cover current debts. The bonds would be repaid from the annual payments the state receives from tobacco companies.

Nevada receives about $50 million a year from the tobacco industry to compensate for the medical costs to the state of tobacco-related illnesses.

"The situation is so dire now it makes sense to use tobacco securitization to balance the state budget," Krolicki said. "You can’t nickel and dime your way out of a $1 billion budget shortfall."

Legislators next week are scheduled to go into a special session to cut $100 million to $200 million more in state spending because of falling tax revenues. Lawmakers and Gov. Jim Gibbons already have approved $914 million in cuts to the two-year budget that ends June 30, 2009.

Krolicki’s plan isn’t without its critics.

In a letter Wednesday to Gibbons, state Treasurer Kate Marshall said her office has been unable to secure the "working papers" on the assumptions Krolicki used to arrive at the estimated proceeds from his plan. If the Legislature considers the proposal, Marshall said, she wants to work with the attorney general "to determine the extent to which such action would put the state at risk of engaging in fiduciary failure."

Marshall also pointed out that Krolicki in 2003 told the Senate Committee on Government Affairs that a tobacco securitization plan would be a "tremendous fiduciary failure" and should not be used to "balance today’s budget."

At the time, Krolicki was state treasurer.

Krolicki said that in earlier sessions he advocated legislators issue bonds against the tobacco money. But at the 2003 session, he said, he opposed the plan because "it is too expensive and the market is not right."

The situation has changed dramatically since 2003, Krolicki said, and the plan is needed because there is no guarantee Nevada will continue to receive money from the tobacco industry at current levels.

The tobacco money now is used to cover some of the expenses of the Millennium Scholarship and SeniorRx programs.

"It is one of the few options that can raise a considerable amount of money without raising taxes or substantially harming a considerable amount of people," Krolicki said.

Legislators and the governor are looking at ways to cut spending without laying off workers.

Krolicki said his plan is available on his Web site and in handouts he has distributed to the media. He said he proposed creation of a working group, which would include the treasurer, to review the plan before any bonds were sold.

"I would be pleased to work with her (Marshall) and show how the model works," he said. "She is making noise now in a nonconstructive way."

Since Marshall assumed his job in January 2007, the two have been at loggerheads.

Krolicki has been investigated by the Nevada Division of Investigation because of concerns Marshall raised over his handling of a college tuition program and office e-mail messages. No charges have been filed against him.

The announcement was made in public advertisements in Arabic-language newspapers as part of a "Youth Without Tobacco" campaign.

A spokesman for Dubai municipality told AFP that cigarette vendors and managers of public places such as cafes and restaurants have been instructed to ask clients for proof of identity even to smoke water pipes.

Those breaking the law would be fined, he said without elaborating.

Before Saturday’s ban the sale of cigarettes in Dubai was prohibited to anyone under 18 and smokers were not allowed to light up in public places including hotels, restaurants, cafes and offices.

The campaign was launched to coincide with World No Tobacco Day on Saturday.

The World Health Organisation said on Friday that only a total ban on all forms of tobacco advertising can stop the "constantly mutating virus" of the marketing industry and protect vulnerable young people.

Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates, is a regional tourism and business hub that attracts millions of visitors each year.

The Government is set to reap $2 billion in extra revenue after it increased the tax on the sweet, ready-mixed alcoholic drinks which it says are responsible for a significant rise in binge drinking, particularly amongst young Australian women.

Dr Moodie, chairman of the National Preventative Health Task Force and professor of global health at Melbourne University’s Nossal Institute, says it is time to act as there has been little movement in the price of cigarettes in the past decade.

"One of the major successes, I guess, in Australia’s battle with tobacco over the last 10 to 20 years has been an increase in price - gradual - but it hasn’t increased over the last 10 years," he said.

"It’s now time we did increase the cost of cigarettes, [which are] after all, the major killer in Australia.

"We know that if for example we added an extra 2.5 cents to every cigarette stick, that would across the board drop consumption by nearly 3 per cent.

"It’s a major contribution to public health."

Dr Moodie says that increasing tax on cigarettes could be instituted relatively rapidly.

But a recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health questioned the effectiveness of price increases to cut consumption, and raised concerns about the burden placed on poorer smokers.

Dr Moodie says funding for quit smoking programs would address these concerns.

"Certainly the work that Quit Victoria have been doing on this, still shows that there is a very close relationship between price and consumption," Dr Moodie said.

He says money raised by this increased tax, suggested at the recent 2020 summit, should go towards a national preventative health agency.

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Self-extinguishing cigarettes could be mandatory from next year, following a meeting of emergency services ministers in Canberra.
A final decision will be up to Treasurer Wayne Swan but federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said a commitment was reached at the meeting.
"We have committed to implementing a national standard for the introduction of reduced fire-risk cigarettes," he told reporters in Canberra.
"We’re making recommendations to the treasurer," Mr McClelland said.
"The reality is that while there is commitment from all governments to implement it, there will be some consultation with industry.
"The timetable we have asked treasury to work towards is early 2009."
Mr Swan will have the final call because making the change mandatory would require an amendment to the Trade Practices Act.
NSW Emergency Services Minister Nathan Rees, who initiated the debate, said 67 people died last year from fires started by cigarettes.
"This issue has been around since 2005," Mr Rees said.
"In NSW, we have up to 20 deaths each year directly attributable to cigarettes that can’t extinguish themselves and that’s in addition to property damage which in some cases is up to $80 million a year."
A spokesman for the Australian arm of British American Tobacco said the company was broadly supportive of the aim.
"British American Tobacco supports the goal of reducing the incidents of fires caused by the careless disposal of lit cigarettes," spokesman Bede Fennell told AAP.
"We have been an active participant in the consultation process with the ACCC and Standards Australia and are grateful of the opportunity to ensure the practicalities of such a change and all unintended consequences are ironed out."
Mr Fennell warned smokers not to treat the new cigarettes as "safe".
"It is important, however, that smokers are aware that cigarettes produced to meet the proposed reduced-fire risk standard are not fire safe and all lit cigarettes should be carefully disposed of."

Airing its disappointment on the excise increase on non-filter cigarettes, which account for nearly 30% of the total industry volume, the Tobacco Institute of India said in a statement: “Duty on micro plains (cigarettes of length upto 60 mm) has gone up by almost five times — from Rs 173.04 per 1,000 to Rs 843.57) and on plains (cigarettes of length between 60-70 mm) by about 2½ times — from Rs 562.38 to Rs 1,362.69.”

“Put together, the plains segment constituting over a quarter of the industry volume, will get wiped out. Cigarette consumers will now be compelled to shift to cheaper forms of tobacco consumption which are even more toxic. This kind of unprecedented treatment of the Indian cigarette industry is senseless and retrograde,” the institute stated in the media release.

Industry sources, too, are a disgruntled lot primarily because cigarettes account for only 15% of overall tobacco consumption and generates as much as 85% of the total revenue from tobacco. Revenue mopups from the cigarette industry have increased by more than eight times to an estimated Rs 8,350 crore in 2007-08 from Rs 988 crore in 1984-85 (when the tax was ad valorem) despite an 11% growth in volumes over the last 23 years.

Corroborating, ITC’s corporate communication VP Nazeeb Arif said: “The cigarette industry has been hit once again following the increase in excise duty on plains. The move is expected to drive users to revenue inefficient forms of tobacco products.”

Sources said the finance minister had, in his speech, stated that he is raising the tax on non-filters as these are more toxic than filter cigarettes. He must also know that beedis, which have a higher tar content than cigarettes, are also non-filter,” the institute said.

Incidentally, non-filters are by and large consumed by relatively weaker economic sections of the society and offers the beedi smoker a chance to upgrade to a better quality product.

Companies like ITC Ltd, Godfrey Phillips and VST Industries have reasons to cheer as the finance minister has doubled the basic customs duty on cigars, cheroots and cigarillos to 60% with immediate effect.

The acquisition by the world’s second biggest tobacco group comes just weeks after Turkey’s parliament passed a law banning smoking in public places and raised the country’s consumption tax on tobacco.

Richard Hodgson, in charge of investment at BAT, said the ban would hit consumption but he expected the decline to be less than 10pc. Turkey is the world’s eighth biggest tobacco market with consumption of 115bn cigarettes a year in a country with a population of 71m people. The acquisition will give BAT a 36pc share of the market, behind market leader Altria which has 41pc.

BAT fought off bids from Citigroup’s international venture capital arm and private equity group Cinven. The acquisition has been opposed in Turkey where factory workers staged a sit-in in protest against the sale, the first sell-off in a state privatisation programme.

BAT, which makes Dunhill, Kent, Pall Mall and Lucky Strike cigarettes, said the deal would be earnings enhancing from 2009. BAT shares rose 16p to £18.74.

And six of the top 10 items found were recyclable, Clean Up Australia chairman Ian Kiernan said.

Releasing the annual Rubbish Report, Mr Kiernan said more than 8000 tonnes of rubbish was collected in last year’s clean-up.

Cigarette butts remained the most commonly found rubbish item for the 12th year in a row, accounting for 12.2 per cent of all items found.

For the 13th consecutive year, recyclable plastics made up the majority of rubbish collected.

"Thousands of tonnes of recyclable rubbish are dumped in the environment each year," Mr Kiernan said.

"As a general rule, Australians are pretty good recyclers but these statistics prove there’s still a long way to go."

Mr Kiernan and federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett will launch this year’s Clean Up day with a new advertising campaign on climate change. The advertisement highlights how much of Australia’s unique natural environment could be lost without greater action to limit the impacts of climate change.

This year’s Clean Up Australia Day will be on Sunday, March 2.

The written history of cigarettes dates back to the early 16th century when Spaniards conquerors witnessed the Aztec Indians smoking an ancient cigarette, it was a cane or reed tube stuffed with tobacco.

It was the Spaniards who introduced the cigar in the old world. Early in the 16th century, beggars of Seville picked up discarded cigar butts, shredded the contexts rolled them back in paper and termed those as cigarillos. Cigarettes spread through Europe in the wake of the Napoleonic wars and became common towards the middle of the century.

A cigarette factory was established in 1853 but it was after the Crimean war where British got the first taste of cigarettes, which was the outset of cigarette’s immense upcoming popularity. The French were the people who gave cigarettes their present name, which meant ‘little cigar’.

In 1882, the cigarette was a specialty item made by hand, sold for a penny apiece, and very much the stepchild of other tobacco products. However, that was about to change.

An automated cigarette rolling machine, developed by 18-year-old James Bonsack, was put into use in 1883 and revolutionized cigarette production. The retail price was cut in half, and volume, which in premachine days had never exceeded 500 million, leaped to 10 billion by 1910. American Tobacco was able to take advantage of this new technology and, like Standard Oil, was such a success that it, too, and was broken up by the feds in 1911.

In the 1840s the cigarette industry was born, although cigarettes were still rolled by hand, mainly by women. In 1881 the cigarette-rolling machine was invented, increasing production exponentially. Offering a cigarette and a light became a ritual of sociability. The two World Wars helped spread the habit widely.

During the 1920s women took up smoking as a sign of modernity. The development of mass media and advertising in the late 19th and 20th Century played a decisive role in securing the popularity of cigarettes . Today 93 percent of the world’s tobacco is consumed as cigarettes .

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