NYC starts anti-tobacco move, raises cigarette prices to 13 USD

NEW YORK, Aug. 31 — The New York city has raised the minimum
price of cigarettes and little cigars to 13 U.S. dollars and placed a cap
on tobacco retail dealer licenses in an effort to crackdown on smoking.

The anti-smoking move came in on Monday when the city mayor Bill de Blasio
signed seven bills to help reduce the number of smokers.Under the new laws,
pharmacies, or retail stores that contain pharmacies, will not be able to
sell tobacco products, including cigarettes.There are over 550 pharmacies
in New York City licensed to sell tobacco products. The prohibition would
begin after these current licenses expire in 2018. Other measures include
requiring retailers of e-cigarettes be issued a license and caping the
number of these licenses; raising the biennial fee for the new tobacco
retail dealer license that includes all types of tobacco sales to 200
dollars from the current 110 dollars. By imposing these measures, the city
plans to reduce the number of smokers by 160,000 by 2020. While smoking
rates in New York city have declined from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 14.3
percent in 2015, the city still has more than 900,000 smokers, according to
the mayor’s office.Tobacco has been a leading contributor to preventable,
premature death in New York City, killing an estimated 12,000 people
annually. – XINHUA