Florida Legislature must modernize state's 14-year-old tobacco policies: Citizens For Fairness

The Florida Legislature must modernize the state's 14-year-old tobacco policies said Citizens for Fairness in Florida, a coalition of individuals, retailers, manufacturers, health care advocates, and statewide organizations.

The goal of the coalition is to ensure that smokers of all brands of cigarettes are contributing equally to offsetting the cost of smoking-related illness and anti-tobacco education initiatives in Florida as it is in Georgia and other states.

"A cigarette is a cigarette," said Jim Smith, President of the Citizens for Fairness in Florida. "So why should a pack of Dosal 305's be exempted from carrying the same 52¢ fee found on every other brand of cigarettes?"

In an effort to recoup more than tens-of-millions of dollars in lost revenue, Citizens for Fairness in Florida ask lawmakers to support HB 1207, a bill that will generate approximately $90 million each year for the state by standardizing fees across the tobacco industry.

"This is about fairness. All we are asking is that all tobacco companies play by the same rules," continued Smith. "If Dosal and other companies can pay the fee in Georgia, then why can't they pay it in Florida."

The Miami-based Dosal Tobacco Corporation has experienced a 750 percent growth over the last decade and manufactures roughly one-out-of-every-five cigarettes sold in Florida. But Dosal and the Non Participating Manufacturers (NPM's) were not part of the final 1997 Major Tobacco Settlement Agreement, and manufacturers of these brands of cigarettes have never been asked to contribute to the funding of state health care programs like Medicaid.

The Citizens for Fairness in Florida coalition aims to close what amounts to a $90 million-a-year gap in the state's existing revenue system with the passage of HB 1207.