Free Republic

BOSTON —— The Massachusetts Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack and close hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called corporate tax loopholes. The House passed a similar tax package last month. Gov. Deval Patrick generally supports an increase in the cigarette tax, but the $1 boost will be tied up in negotiations over corporate tax rates before it reaches his desk. The Senate tax package, which passed 31 to 6, would raise nearly $472 million in revenue next year. The House passed a tax package last month that would bring in $80...

Can you believe this? I just got a letter in the mail from Allnative about my tobacco products that I order. "Effective immediately, AllNative.com, as well as many other cigarette retailers around the country, is being forced by the major credit card companies (Discover, MasterCard, Visa, and American Express) to eliminate credit and debit card purchases for cigarettes and other tobacco products. We were notified on Friday, May 19th that they were "pulling the plug" immediately with no time for us to notify our customers." When did this country go communist? This is freaking nuts. I called AllNative and they...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - A man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to funnel money, weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah terrorist group and will testify against other defendants, prosecutors said Monday. Said Mohamad Harb, 31, pleaded guilty to conspiracy Feb. 25 and a charge of providing material support to a known terrorist organization was dropped, U.S. Attorney Robert Conrad said. Harb's trial had been scheduled to begin in two weeks. Conrad said the plea was kept secret because Harb agreed to testify against other defendants in exchange for the removal of some of his relatives from Lebanon to the United...

Fourteen indicted in Appalachia election fraud probeFriday, March 03, 2006 By STEPHEN IGO Times-News WISE - Fourteen individuals, including the mayor/town manager of Appalachia, a town councilman, and two law enforcement officials, were indicted by a Wise County grand jury on multiple counts stemming from an alleged conspiracy to conduct election fraud during the 2004 town elections. The indictments show the investigation hasn't been just about pork rinds, Special Prosecutor Tim McAfee said during a press conference at the Wise County Courthouse. The investigation into allegations of voter fraud evolved from early reports of attempted vote buying before town elections...

EXETER, Calif., Jan. 26 (UPI) -- The last of eight hostages being held by a man in an Exeter, Calif., bank was freed unharmed early Thursday after a near 11-hour standoff. The incident began around 5 p.m. Wednesday when a man with a handgun entered the bank as it was closing and demanded money. When he realized the alarm had been triggered, he took eight customers and staff hostage, CBS reported.

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China, home to more than 300 million smokers, has ratified an international treaty prohibiting tobacco advertising and will ban tobacco vending machines, the government said Monday. The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was ratified Sunday by the National People's Congress, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Parliament leaders "supported the treaty by announcing that China will ban tobacco vending machines of any kind" in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, Xinhua said. The treaty requires China to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship on radio, television, print media and the Internet within five...

Smoking out the terrorists..http://www.india-defence.com/node/308 Drawing lessons from the Afghan war where US forces had to ferret out the Taliban from caves and bunkers, India's leading defence explosives laboratory in Pune has developed specialised bombs to deal with terrorist hideouts. While the high-penetration smoke-spewing incendiary ammunition developed by the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) is ready for production, work has been initiated on oxygen-depleting thermobaric warheads. "The earlier version of the suffocating smoke-spewing incendiary ammunition did not have a high penetration capability. Our latest version can penetrate 9-inch-thick walls and then explode inside, releasing suffocating smoke to ferret out terrorists,"...

Six Arrested After Brawl Over Cigarettes Tue Jun 7, 4:58 PM ET CHARLESTON, S.C. - Four people were injured and six arrested following a brawl at a convenience store over a pack of cigarettes, authorities said. It happened Sunday when a 20-year-old woman walked into the store on Johns Island and tried to buy cigarettes. The 18-year-old clerk would not sell them to her because the woman's driver's license was damaged. The woman argued with the clerk, then left, returning a few minutes later with a friend who also started arguing. The friend then jumped over the counter and attacked...

A widow whose husband died from lung cancer has lost her legal battle against one of the world's biggest tobacco companies.Margaret McTear claimed Imperial Tobacco failed to warn her husband Alfred that smoking could give him cancer. But the judge in the case said: "The pursuer's case failed on every issue on which I would have needed to find in her favour." Alfred McTear began the action against Imperial in 1993 and his wife continued it after his death that year. Mrs McTear, 60, of Beith, Ayrshire had demanded £500,000 in damages. She said she was disappointed at the judgement...

VENICE, Fla. - A 34-year-old high school math teacher was arrested after two female students said he served them vodka drinks and smoked marijuana with them at his house, officials said. Michael B. Ziemian also showed the girls how he was growing marijuana in his garage, a Sarasota County sheriff's report said. He was arrested Wednesday and charged with possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana, cultivation of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, delivery of a controlled substance to a person under 18 years old and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The school district put Ziemian and...

If you buy smokes online you may just be screwed. All major credit card companies in the United States have voluntarilly agreed to ban all internet transactions concerning cigarettes regardless of the customer. And they kept it extremely quiet until today.I found exactly two articles on it and both were regional papers requiring subscription. The move is ostensibly shaded with the "Let's keep tobacco out of kid's hands" malarkey but the real reason is stated later. States are tired of losing tax revenue to out-of-state buyers so they completely banned all cigarette purchases.What does this mean? I am writing to...

Michigan Firm Won't Allow Smoking, Even On Employee's Own Time LANSING, Mich. -- A Michigan health care company has fired four of its employees for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes. The company enacted a new policy this month, allowing workers to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking takes place after-hours, or at home. The founder of Weyco Inc. said the company doesn't want to pay the higher health care costs associated with smoking. An official of the company -- which administers health benefits -- estimated that 18 to 20 of its...

Vatican City, Vatican City, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- An article in a leading Roman Catholic journal signals that the Vatican may join the public health establishment's crusade against cigarette smoking. The latest edition of the scholarly publication Civilta Cattolica, published by the Jesuits and approved by a top aide to Pope John Paul II, says smokers cannot damage their own health and that of others "without moral responsibility." The article by Giuseppe de Rosa stops short of calling smoking a sin, but says lighting up is "not neutral either in social or indeed moral terms." De Rosa's views, and presumably...

Marine Pictured in Photo Unfazed by Fame PIKEVILLE, Ky. - An eastern Kentucky Marine whose battle-grimed face has quickly become a symbol of the fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah says he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. But his mother is thrilled. Maxie Webber, of Robinson Creek in eastern Kentucky, said the close-up of Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller let her know that her son was OK. Webber said she first saw it Wednesday on CBS. "I just sat here and I thought, that's my son," Webber said. "I couldn't believe it." The photograph, taken by...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- States are increasingly using their $206 billion settlement with cigarette makers to plug holes in their budgets, congressional auditors said Monday.</p> <p>State officials said at the time of the settlement in 1998 that their goal was to recover the cost of treating sick smokers, but the General Accounting Office found that just 24 percent of last year's settlement earnings was spent on health-related initiatives.</p>

PROVIDENCE -- In a highly-anticipated ruling this morning, U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith found on the the side of the state in the Narragansett Indian tribal smokeshop dispute, saying that it has the authority to impose a tax on cigarettes sold at the shop on tribal lands. Smith also ruled that the state did not violate federal law or the tribe's sovereign rights in executing a search warrant at the shop. "This conclusion is driven by the finding that the legal of the State's cigarette's tax scheme falls on the purchaser or consumer of cigarettes, and not on...

There is a war on, and danger lurks ahead, and the Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry are getting desperate - for tobacco. It's been two weeks since they left they relative luxury of their camp in Kuwait and their supplies of cigarettes and chewing tobacco are running out. They are rationing their precious supplies, and even begging smokes from local farmers. An army, Napoleon reputedly said, marches on its stomach. But for generations, armies have also marched on nicotine. And these Marines - smoking more than usual under the stress of battle conditions - are getting antsy. "It...

Over 170 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have agreed to an international anti-smoking treaty at a meeting in Geneva. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control imposes severe restrictions on the advertising and marketing of tobacco to try to reduce the number of smoking-related deaths around the world. It has taken weeks of difficult, often tense, negotiations to reach this agreement and was finally hammered out in the middle of the night after the deadline for ending the negotiations was extended repeatedly. The delays arose because some countries with big tobacco industries, most notably the United States, opposed...

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...

Indian kiosks put tax-free cigarettes online DENNIS C. ENSER/Buffalo News This kiosk in a Yellow Goose market - used by Sue Medina links to an Oneida Indian Nation Web site. An Indian nation from Central New York is placing tobacco kiosks in some Buffalo-area convenience stores that will allow the electronic mail ordering of tax-free cigarettes at a savings of up to $20 a carton. The move, a first according to industry officials, came Tuesday, the day before today's 39-cents-per-pack state tax increase. That increase brings the total state tax on a pack of smokes to $1.50, the highest in...