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Increased sales of online cigarettes over the Internet pose a major challenge to public health efforts to reduce smoking and other cheap cigarettes use. By failing to do adequate age verification, the sharply growing number of websites selling cigarettes products make it easier and cheaper for kids to buy cigarettes. They also offer smokers a way to avoid paying state tobacco and sales taxes, thereby keeping cigarette prices down and smoking levels up.

The Problem

·  Up from only a handful in the late 1990's, more than 400 web sites currently sell tobacco products.

·  Internet tobacco sales are growing rapidly and will account for 14 percent of the total U.S. market by 2005, according to a recent Prudential Securities report.

·  Kids as young as 11 were successful more than 90 percent of the time in purchasing cigarettes online and there was little effort to verify the age of Internet cigarette purchasers at the time of purchase or at the time of delivery, according to a study in the September 10, 2003, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) .

·  Three-quarters of all online cigarettes sellers explicitly say that they will not report cigarette sales to tax collection officials. States lose as much as $200 million annually in uncollected tobacco taxes through Internet sales, a private research firm.

Responses to the Problem

Public health groups support federal legislation introduced by U.S. Reps. Mark Green (R-WI) and Martin Meehan (D-MA) to help states address the growing problem of tobacco excise tax evasion caused by buy cigarettes by:

·  requiring that Internet sellers ensure that all state excise taxes have been paid on any cigarettes or smokeless tobacco they send into a state, with all required tax stamps affixed;

·  requiring all Internet sellers to register with those states to which they are making sales and to comply with all state tobacco tax laws as if the Internet seller were based in the state;

·  allowing states to block the delivery of online cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold by Internet sellers that fail to register with the state or otherwise fail to comply with federal or state law; and

·  giving state officials the right to bring elusive Internet sellers into federal court and to collect comprehensive injunctive and equitable relief, including monetary damages.

The Senate Judiciary Committee recently approved similar legislation introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) .

The public health community also supports legislation introduced by Rep. Meehan that would protect kids by requiring effective age verification both at the point of purchase and the point of delivery for Internet tobacco sales.

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