Tobacco PLUS Store

Missouri has developed a unique market for cigarettes. It is possible for public health, and tobacco shops and convenience stores (TSCS) to work together for the common good!!!

Missouri has low cigarette prices (about $1.00 per pack below the average of all states) and the lowest cigarette tax ($0.17 per pack or 1/10 the average of all states).

Missouri ranks near the top in the portion of people smoking (about 1/5 rather than 1/10). Residential health care facility caregivers are drawn from a low paid group where well over 1/5 are nicotine addicted.

They desire to adjust their blood nicotine level during their shift at work. This practice yields third hand tobacco smoke that is carried into no smoking areas in their hair, clothing, and bodies.

Over 1/3 of in-store sales at convenience stores comes from cigarettes. Over 80% of life time smokers become addicted in their teen years.

The CVS drugstore chain dropped a two billion dollar per year tobacco business and Wall Mart in Canada announced the same this week (14 March). That will drive the market even more into tobacco shops (20) and convenience stores (61 in the Columbia area by Google).

Public health wants to prevent illness and early death. Tobacco shops and convenience stores (TSCS) want to maximize profit in today’s market.

Big Tobacco knows that the transition, from supplying addicted smokers with nicotine in a toxic smoke, to safe alternative sources (lozenges and toothpicks), is now well underway. The sale of cigarettes to well-to-do and educated people continues to fall.

Tobacco PLUS creates a win/win situation for public health and TSCS. Sell each pack of cigarettes ($5.00 each, for example) with a prize. Price a pack of cigarettes PLUS a prize at $8.00.

We now have the price barrier that public health needs to reduce teen experimentation. The $3.00 prize can be anything marked in the store (food, drink, a discount) or items near the checkout.

There is a profit to be made on both the pack of cigarettes and on the prize. At 10%, that is a minimum profit of $0.50 plus $0.30 or $0.80 per pack of cigarettes. The maximum profit can be well over a $1.00 depending upon the prize display.

Display a “Tobacco PLUS’ sign with “responsible marketing of tobacco.”  The signage can be a part of the new licensing being created for Columbia. 

Addendum: The fact that Columbia was the first city in Missouri, in 2014, to raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 years of age to sell (not to buy) cigarettes will reduce the effectiveness of Tobacco PLUS marketing within the city limits.

Columbia charges a $0.10 per pack tobacco occupation license tax and is looking for money to enforce a new tobacco retail license. Kansas City charges the same without an additional tax for license enforcement. 

This is not a tobacco excise tax. Only the state can collect the excise tax ($0.17 per pack). Tobacco Plus keeps the money in town until the state excise tax is increased to an effective rate as to reduce teen smoking.

The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement,1998, requires manufacturers to contribute $0.0188 per cigarette ($0.376 per pack) into an escrow account to pay states, for ever, for their Medicaid tobacco illness expenses. [This does not count billions of dollars paid by private pay and insurance companies.]

These fees, well below $3.00 per pack, have little effect on reducing cigarette sales. Reduced cigarette sales reduce the federal and state tax collections. This conflict of interest continues to require more public health education.