Thank you for sending me your comments concerning rising taxes on cigarettes. It is always good to hear from you. There are many reasons why cigarette taxes have been rising over the past several years. One of the primary reasons is to help off-set the rising health costs due to increases in the amount of patients with lung cancer, heart disease, and other smoking related illnesses. Additionally, cigarette manufacturers have raised their prices to help cover the costs of law suit settlements. Many states have raised their taxes on cigarettes as well, both as a way to generate much needed revenue and as a method to discourage underage smoking. I understand and appreciate your concerns that cigarettes are a legal product and that smoking is a perfectly legal activity. When looking for ways to finance health care for poor children and some elderly, however, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate agreed to increase the federal excise tax to finance the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 (CHAMP Act). Sadly, two out of every three uninsured children in the United States are eligible for coverage through these two programs but are not insured. Overall, the CHAMP Act will provide 5 million additional children with health insurance coverage across the United States. Children in the State of Tennessee stand to benefit tremendously from the CHAMP Act. 555 Belomorkanal Bond Camel Chesterfield Dallas Davidoff Dunhill Epique Esse Gauloises Karelia Kent L&M Lucky Strike Magna Marlboro Marlboro Mild Seven Monte Carlo More Pall Mall Parliament Peter I R1 Rothmans Russian Style Salem Sobranie Sovereign Viceroy Virginia Slims Vogue West Winston

"We have people getting out of their cars and lighting up a last cigarette before they come in," she added. "They keep smoking right up to the doors and when staff ask them not to smoke they get all kinds of abuse. "They use the f-word and anything else to hand and there have been cases of people approaching staff in an aggressive manner." Mrs Baker revealed smoking staff were unhappy with the restrictions and a number of nurses had turned to anti-smoking measures offered by dedicated staff member Julia North. But Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for smokers‘ rights group Forest, said the policy of banning smoking in the open air was drivel’. "They make it up as they go along," he said, "hospitals have a duty to encourage healthy living but they are not there to tell us how to live our lives.

Aside from the issue of health warnings in disrupting brand image, there is a raft of other packaging issues that warrant research attention to help understand how packaging might influence brand image. For example, what aspects of pack design are most important in communicating or reinforcing brand image? What roles do colour, pack size, and pack construction, for example, play in influencing potential consumers—especially starter smokers, but also other subgroups of consumers—to select one brand over another? What role does packaging play in helping to maintain brand choice against increasing concerns about smoking health risks? In contrast to the small amount of public health attention on packaging, tobacco companies have conducted a vast amount of consumer research on this subject in their efforts to design packs that might promote cigarette sales. A window on this research has been opened by the public posting of tobacco industry documents made available through lawsuits and under the terms of settlements with the tobacco industry. This paper seeks to better understand, through tobacco industry documents, the role of cigarette pack design in the overall marketing effort used by tobacco companies to promote cigarettes. The paper focuses upon three specific research questions: * What is the role of cigarette packaging in the total marketing effort for cigarettes and how does this vary when other aspects of the marketing mix are restricted, as in the case of advertising? * To what extent have tobacco companies used package design to intentionally influence consumer perceptions of product health risks? * What packaging features most appeal to particular target groups, such as the young, and women?