Man charged with marijuana trafficking after special delivery

A 29-year-old Moscow man faces charges after more than a pound of marijuana mailed to his home was intercepted by FedEx employees at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport last week.
The shipping company twice attempted to deliver a package from Fortuna, Calif., to a Brett Cunningham at a residence on the 1000 block of Mountain View Road, according to an affidavit filed in Latah County 2nd District Court.

Global tobacco giant Philip Morris Tuesday stepped up its legal campaign

Last month Philip Morris Asia launched a case against the government under an investment treaty with Hong Kong over the legislation, which says cigarettes can only be sold in drab, olive-brown packets.

The latest challenge, by Australia-based Philip Morris Limited (PML), is on constitutional grounds, arguing that the government has passed a law that acquires the firm's valuable brands and intellectual property.

"We believe plain packaging violates the Australian constitution because the government is seeking to acquire our property without paying compensation," PML spokesman Chris Argent said in a statement.

The company is seeking a ruling from the High Court that the government cannot stop the firm from using its intellectual property and branding on its cigarettes and packets.

Under the ground-breaking Australian law passed last month, all tobacco products will need to be sold in plain packaging from December 1, 2012, which will also carry graphic health warnings.

The proposal to remove all logos and to print company names in the same font has angered tobacco firms, who quickly moved to challenge the law.

Besides Philip Morris, global giant Imperial Tobacco has launched a legal challenge in the High Court claiming that the law breaches Australia's constitution by infringing intellectual property rights.

British American Tobacco (BAT) has filed a similar constitutional challenge.

Australia is set to be the first country to mandate plain packaging to reduce smoking rates and Attorney General Nicola Roxon, formerly the health minister, has said she is prepared for the challenges to the law.

While Canberra says tobacco use costs the country more than Aus$30 billion (US$30 billion) a year in healthcare and lost productivity, the tobacco firms argue the government cannot prove plain packaging will cut smoking rates.

Philip Morris International has seven of the world's top 15 tobacco brands, including Marlboro, and through PML it holds about a 37.5 percent share of the Australian cigarette market.

Cigarette fiends smash Hopewell deli's windows in pursuit of Newports

The owners of a local deli are likely having a hard time feeling the Christmas spirit after two burglaries over a three day period left them short on cigarettes and forced them to board up much of the front of their store.

“Someone broke in twice last week,” said Sharmi Patel, who along with her husband Champak owns the Mainline Deli near the intersection of Shiloh Pike and West Park Drive.

Patel said the burglar or burglars took the typical fare expected of a convenience store break-in: cartons upon cartons of cigarettes.

“Altogether they took 24 cartons,” said Patel, adding that they stole all Newport and Marlboro brand, which cost $73 per box, for a total loss of $1,752 of product.

Patel suspects the same actor broke into the store both times this week.

She explained that she came in Saturday morning to find a large spiderweb crack in one of the store’s large front windows, which she had someone board over for her.

She then came in on Monday morning to find one of the large front windows by the cash register completely smashed out.

“That’s the one I still didn’t fix,” she said.

Patel said that while she has insurance for the store and its products, she would prefer to simply absorb the loss on her own rather than make a claim with the insurance company because she thinks they will raise her rates.

“I don’t go with the insurance because it just brings the rate up. I would rather just pay for it myself,” she said.

She estimated that the damaged windows would cost around $1,000 to repair.

Patel said that in the three years she and her husband have had the store in that location, they have suffered five break-ins.

In February, surveillance video from the store showed a man driving up to the store around 2 a.m. and winging an object at the store’s front window, damaging the glass that had just been replaced after a burglary four months before that.

Patel started using Plexiglas because it typically cracks but the window does not shatter.
Sgt. Brian Polite from the State Police said that reports about the incidents were not immediately available.

Patel said that police have increased their presence near the store, although it obviously has not helped.

“The police come and do extra rounds, but they didn’t catch anyone.”

Top Dividend Stocks For 2012: Altria Keeps America Smoking

Parsimony believes that 2012 will be riddled with volatility and uncertainty for equity market investors. Interest rates will remain low due to over indebted balance sheets. Equity market investors should seek equities with stable earnings (and dividends) that will hold up in an uncertain and weak economic environment.

Lakshman Achuthan, the co-founder of ECRI (video) was on Bloomberg on Friday updating viewers on his recession call. The ECRI continues to call for a recession in the first half of 2012. Due to the strong track record of the ECRI, we think that investors should remain defensive in 2012.
Altria engages in the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, smokeless products, and wine in the United States and internationally. It offers cigarettes under the Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Parliament, Benson & Hedges, Basic, and L&M brands; smokeless tobacco products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, Husky brands, and Marlboro snus brands; and machine-made large cigars and pipe tobacco.

The company also produces and sells blended table wines under the Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia Crest names; and distributes Antinori and Villa Maria Estate wines and Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte in the United States. In addition, it maintains a portfolio of leveraged and direct finance leases in rail and surface transport, aircraft, electric power, real estate, and manufacturing.

The company sells its tobacco products to wholesalers, including distributors; large retail organizations, such as chain stores; and the armed services. Altria Group, Inc. markets its wine products to restaurants, wholesale clubs, supermarkets, wine shops, and mass merchandisers. The company was founded in 1919 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

Altria Details Marlboro Performance Options

The new year will bring new options for Marlboro cigarette retailers. Although Philip Morris USA extended its Marlboro Leadership Price (MLP) option through the end of this year, its incentive program is being updated, and will offer an additional option beginning January 1.

The new program, Marlboro Performance Options, will maintain MLP (with subtle updates to signage requirements and a few designated MLP rates) as a choice for higher-tier PM USA retailers, company spokesman Greg Mathe told CSP Daily News/Tobacco E-News. But an alternative option, Marlboro Flexible Option, "allows retailers to have the flexibility to apply additional Marlboro promotional allowances in a variety of ways that best align with their strategy, while still focusing on Marlboro," he said.

As previously reported, the much-talked-about MLP option, in essence, asks operators to forgo part of their typical markup in exchange for incentives. And while an October UBS-CSP Tobacco Survey found that 39% of retailers felt MLP helped Marlboro's share trends, up from 35% in a July survey, the program did have detractors on the retail side.

Mathe said the new option evolved from the company's ongoing discussions with retailers. "What we heard was that although the MLP option did align with strategies of many retailers, some expressed that they would like alternatives," Mathe said.

MLP retailers earn $2 per Marlboro carton for maintaining a competitive Marlboro single-pack price no higher than the designated MLP.

"With the flexible option, there's no maximum price component like the MLP option requires," Mathe said. Retailers can earn $1 per Marlboro carton for those that offer an additional discount on Marlboro Special Blend packings. The retailer must contribute at least 25 cents per pack of Marlboro Special Blend in the Red pack, Marlboro Special Blend in the Gold pack, Marlboro Black Special Blend and Marlboro Menthol Black Special Blend. "Marlboro Special Blend packings provide a lower alternative for price-sensitive Marlboro adult smokers," according to Mathe.

Retailers participating in either option are offered what's called the Marlboro Share Growth incentive, which provides 40 cents per Marlboro carton to retailers reaching a predetermined share target at each store. "That's really an additional set of money that can be used to enhance the retailer's profitability, or could go to further reduce their Marlboro price," Mathe said. "So it's just an additional resource for them."

Marlboro Performance Options, including both MLP and the flexible option, runs from January through June of 2012.

"Now there's different options for different retailer strategies," Mathe said. "These options offer retailers an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition. These resources work to help increase foot traffic in their store, sell premium cigarettes and build consumer loyalty."

He added, "We constantly look at our promotional resources in the marketplace. They continually evolve; we listen to feedback from retailers and try to always improve upon our current promotions."

Brazil Widens War on Tobacco

The Brazilian government is a presidential signature away from passing a law that would not only ban smoking in enclosed public places nationwide, but also extend restrictions more than previously thought.
But the new law would increase restrictions making it illegal to light up in smoking rooms, or in airports and bars, ban cigarette advertisements everywhere cigarettes are sold, and increase taxes on cigarettes by up to 300%.
Although some legislators fought the bill, the Ministry of Health and supporters of the government did not back down. “We cannot support any kind of amendment to stop our continuous agenda to restrict cigarettes”, said a speaker for the ministry.
The new federal law is based on states legislation already in effect in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Paraná.
According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), Brazil has over 30 million smokers. The number of smokers in the country has fallen 45% in the last 20 years.
The smoking restrictions have generate some anger with the public, but also sympathizers. In São Paulo, the anti-smoking law is supported by 91% of general public and even 83% of the smokers. São Paulo state officials say the law has led 42% of the smokers to smoke less.
“The society is starting to realize the risks of cigarettes and wants environments free of smoke”, affirmed Maria Cristina Megid, director of the Center for Health Surveillance of São Paulo.
But not everyone thinks this kind of legislation is positive.
“Nobody is worried about the smokers. We should be treated as adults not kids”, Milena Hannud, founder of the NGO Eu Fumo (I Smoke), complained on a local website.
The Brazilian war on smoking may also hurt some economic groups, particularly small farmers from the South of the country and tobacco corporations.
According to the president of the Brazilian Association of Tobacco Growers, Benício Albano Werner, most of the farmers are very worried about the restrictions.
“There is a climate of apprehension about these very excessive restrictions to the free trade”, affirmed Werner. But he says that the farmers and the industry are adapting themselves to this new reality.
“We have to focus on exports. Fortunately, we have the quality to do it. In Canada and China, the consumption is increasing,” Werner concluded.
Brazil is the second biggest tobacco producer in the world with revenues of over US$ 7 billion a year. Tobacco accounts for 2% of country's exports.

Weak Dutch tobacco controls will cost lives -experts

Leading cancer, asthma and heart health experts accused the Dutch government on Friday of "all but closing down" its tobacco controls and said such lax policies could lead to 145,000 preventable deaths by 2040.

In a letter to The Lancet medical journal, specialists from Europe, the United States and Canada said new Dutch policy moves -- including weakening smoking bans in bars and ending the reimbursement of quit-smoking aids -- would inevitably cost lives.

"Every death that ensues would not just be the responsibility of the tobacco industry, which continues to promote its lethal product, but also a government that looks the other way under the disingenuous banner of 'personal choice' and allows this to happen," the experts wrote.

Smoking causes lung cancer, which is often fatal, and other chronic respiratory diseases. It is also a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, the world's number one killers.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that tobacco will kill nearly 6 million people worldwide this year, including more than 600,000 non-smokers who will die as a result of exposed to second-hand smoke. By 2030, it predicts that tobacco could be killing 8 million people a year.

The experts writing in the Lancet said the Netherlands had fallen out of step with the rest of Europe, and far behind countries like Australia and Uruguay where governments have taken tough action to curb the reach of the tobacco industry.

Authorities in the Netherlands, where the smoking rate is relatively high compared to other Western countries, have already relaxed existing smoke-free laws by saying they need not apply to small owner-run bars.

The Lancet letter said the government was now set to reverse a decision giving smokers who want to quit access to treatment and help.

Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the Brussels-based Smokefree Partnership and a signatory to the Lancet letter, accused the Dutch government of "turning its back on science and on proven best practice".

"The strategies being adopted...will lead to more disease and death," she said in a statement as the letter was published.

A Dutch government spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Geoffrey Fong of the University of Waterloo in Canada, who also signed the Lancet letter, said Dutch policies were also out of line with the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international agreement signed by more than 170 countries -- including the Netherlands -- aimed at curbing tobacco use.

"The Dutch government is reducing the information available to consumers, refusing to introduce graphic pack warnings, and reducing assistance for smokers who want to quit," Fong said, accusing policymakers of "leaving smokers to their fate, which has been strongly determined by the highly addictive products of the tobacco industry."

Cigarette packs in the Netherlands carry warning signs saying Smoking Kills but not photographs illustrating the dangers of smoking.

Earlier this year, a Dutch study called SimSmoke2 projected the effect of tobacco policies on smoking rates and future premature deaths and found that without effective tobacco controls, almost a million lives would be cut short in the Netherlands due to smoke-related diseases between 2011 and 2040.

5 Tobacco Companies With Good Dividend Growth Prospects

The tobacco industry isn’t a favorite of everyone but these companies do pay dividends that average about twice the average dividend of the S&P 500 and beat Treasury yields by a mile. I don’t own any of these stocks, but investors looking for consistently high, rising dividends may want to take a closer look.

The industry continues to face litigation, albeit at a much lower intensity than a few years back, and will likely continue to for the foreseeable future. However, the leaders of these companies are taking steps to offset volume losses in mature markets. The two most promising trends have been to focus on emerging markets and to spend more marketing budget on smokeless tobacco products.

The industry is also looking at other nicotine-related products. I don’t like the sound of that one, but I thought you should know what they’re up to. The emerging markets and smokeless tobacco products are moves away from regulation as neither has the scrutiny of cigarettes. The prospects are decent that these companies will be able to increase profits, cash flows and dividends well into the future.

Both sides seeking to put end to medical marijuana suit before trial

Lawyers on both sides of the first medical marijuana lawsuit filed against the city of Lansing want a judge to rule in their favor in an effort to end the case before it reaches trial.

Attorneys representing the city don't believe TNT Industries LLC, a now-closed medical marijuana dispensary on East Michigan Avenue, has the legal standing necessary to challenge the municipality in court.

TNT in September asked Ingham County Circuit Judge Paula Manderfield to find its business in compliance with state law, force the city to return its operating license — even though it never received one — and award it monetary damages.

The case stems from a Michigan Court of Appeals panel's ruling this summer that patient-to-patient sales of marijuana are illegal under the 2008 voter-approved medical marijuana law. Lansing administrators halted a plan to administer business licenses after City Attorney Brig Smith advised dispensaries to close up shop.

Edwar Zeineh, a Lansing attorney representing TNT Industries, wants a court to determine the city was wrong to deny dispensaries the ability to operate, especially after they paid $1,000 application fees that are now to be returned.

TNT's lawsuit doesn't have the potential to set precedent as much as another case pending in a higher court — a challenge to the Michigan appeals court ruling that essentially invalidated dispensaries.

The Michigan Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to hear that case, which involves a dispensary in Isabella County. But local attorneys believe it has statewide implications that could make it a prime candidate.

Manderfield has yet to issue a written opinion. Her staff said the case remains under review.

At issue is this: Does the dispensary have the grounds to sue on behalf of a business license it never received? And if so, is the city of Lansing the appropriate entity?

"They say we don't have standing. We say we sure do," Zeineh said. "They're arguing procedure. We're arguing substance."

Zeineh said dispensaries, particularly TNT, are looking for clarity on how they can operate under a voter initiative that is supposed to protect them from prosecution. TNT is compensated for distributing marijuana but Zeineh has argued the business does not sell it but rather accepts a "modest fee" for preparing it for patients' use.