Lee Joseph G L, Golden Shelley D, Ribisl Kurt M
Department of Health Education and Promotion, College of Health and Human Performance, East Carolina University, 1000 East 5 Street, Greenville, NC 27858, USA.
Department of Health Behavior, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, 145 Dauer Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
Prev Med Rep. 2017 Sep 28;8:148-152. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2017.09.006. eCollection 2017 Dec.
Increasing the per-unit cost of tobacco products is one of the strongest interventions for tobacco control. In jurisdictions with higher taxes in the U.S., however, cigarette pack litter studies show a substantial proportion of littered packs lack the appropriate tax stamp. More limited but still present counterfeiting also exists. We sought to examine the role of tobacco retailers as a source for untaxed and counterfeit products. Data collectors purchased Newport Green (menthol) or Marlboro Red cigarette packs in a national probability-based sample of tobacco retailers (in 97 counties) from June-October 2012. They made no effort to buy counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes. In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the presence, tax authority, and type (low-tech thermal vs. encrypted) of cigarette pack tax stamps; concordance of tax stamps with where the pack was purchased; and, for Marlboro cigarettes, publicly available visible indicators of counterfeiting. We purchased 2147 packs of which 2033 had tax stamps. Packs missing stamps were in states that do not require them. We found very limited discordance between store location and tax stamp(s) (< 1%). However, a substantial minority of cigarette packs had damaged tax stamps (13%). This occurred entirely with low-tech tax stamps and was not identified with encrypted tax stamps. We found no clear evidence of counterfeit products. Almost all tax stamps matched the location of purchase. Litter studies may be picking up legal tax avoidance instead of illegal tax evasion or, alternatively, purchase of illicit products requires special request by the purchaser.
提高烟草制品的单位成本是烟草控制最有力的干预措施之一。然而，在美国税收较高的司法管辖区，香烟包装垃圾研究表明，大量被丢弃的包装缺少相应的税票。虽然存在但较为有限的假冒现象也存在。我们试图研究烟草零售商作为未纳税和假冒产品来源的作用。数据收集者于2012年6月至10月在全国基于概率抽样的烟草零售商（97个县）样本中购买了新港绿薄荷烟或万宝路红烟包。他们没有刻意去购买假冒或未纳税的香烟。在这项横断面研究中，我们评估了香烟包税票的存在情况、税务机关以及类型（低技术热敏型与加密型）；税票与购买地点的一致性；对于万宝路香烟，评估了公开可用的假冒可见指标。我们购买了2147包香烟，其中2033包有税票。没有税票的烟包来自不要求税票的州。我们发现商店位置与税票之间的不一致非常有限（<1%）。然而，相当一部分香烟包的税票有损坏（13%）。这种情况完全发生在低技术税票上，加密税票未发现这种情况。我们没有发现假冒产品的明确证据。几乎所有税票都与购买地点相符。垃圾研究可能发现的是合法避税而非非法逃税，或者说，购买非法产品需要购买者特别要求。
