Websites Changed With Selling Cigarettes Online

The State of New York has filed suit against six web site operators that illegally sold cigarettes to New York State residents, according to the complaint.

In filing the lawsuit, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the alleged sales are part of a disturbing trend that provides teens easy access to tobacco, and encourages a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenues.

"These vendors not only broke the law prohibiting the sale of tobacco online, but also endangered our children by making cigarettes easier and cheaper to purchase,"Schneiderman said. "With thousands of children becoming addicted smokers each year, and hundreds of thousands more expected to die because of smoking-related illnesses, our fight for a healthier New York is not over.

This office has a proud history of standing up to corrupt tobacco corporations, and as Attorney General I will continue to stop those, no matter how big or powerful they might be, who put profits before the health and safety of our communities, and the laws of this state."

According to the Attorney General's complaints, the named Internet vendors accepted orders from New York State consumers and delivered the cigarettes to New York State addresses. The six vendors named in the suit are:

• Totally Tickled Limited, Inc. for discountcigarettesdomestic.com, Kentucky Smokes, and David White;

• Anton Limited for INeedSmoke.com, and Kyle Williams;

• Cigarettes-online.biz and John Sparkle;

• Best Products Solution Limited for http://cigoutlet.net/;

• Best Products Solution Limited for Smokin4free.com; and

• Best Products Solution Limited for cigoutlet.biz.

Against the law

New York State Public Health Law Section 1399-ll prohibits the shipment of cigarettes to any person in the state unless that person is licensed as a cigarette tax agent or wholesale dealer. Four of the complaints further charge that the Internet vendors violated Executive Law section 63(12) by repeating these illegal sales on more than one occasion. The state is seeking fines of up to $5,000 for each violation and injunction against future sales.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 24,100 children under the age of 18 become new daily smokers each year. An estimated 389,000 kids now under the age of 18 in New York will die prematurely from smoking, according to the CDC.

Lost revenue

In addition to the health effects, the fiscal impact of low-cost cigarettes is staggering. The New York State Department of Health reported that in 2004, the state lost between $436 million and $576 million from the sale of low price, mainly untaxed cigarettes. Of that loss, between $106 million and $122 million derived from online tobacco sales.

Aside from the lost revenue, avoiding the cigarette tax helps smokers avoid quitting: Schneiderman believes if all smokers paid the average retail price for cigarettes, there would be between 51,026 and 76,539 fewer adult smokers in New York.

Internet tobacco prices are much lower than those in regular brick-and-mortar retail outlets because they almost never include the taxes charged by retail stores. The low-cost cigarettes make Internet tobacco products attractive to both adult and underage smokers, and help boost overall smoking levels. There is little to prevent underage online purchases as youth smokers can simply provide false identification to avoid their "age verification" procedures - which is not possible in face-to-face purchases.