Associated Industries of Florida Backs Plan to Impose Fee on Dosal Cigarettes

Siding with Big Tobacco, Associated Industries of Florida wants the Legislature to place a 40-cent-per-pack fee on Miami-based cigarette maker Dosal.

In a statement issued Monday morning, AIF said it supports "legislation that would require all tobacco manufacturers that sell cigarettes in Florida to pay their fair share toward the states burgeoning Medicaid costs."

Under the state's 1997 Tobacco Settlement Agreement, the major manufacturers agreed to pay the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually to help defray some of the states health-care costs.

Dosal Tobacco Corp.'s market share has grown substantially in the intervening 14 years, as its exclusion from the agreement enabled it to undercut rivals on price.

Its time for our Legislature to derail Dosals tobacco gravy train. Florida smokers should not avoid paying important dollars for health care based solely on the brand they choose to smoke. It also gives Dosal and the other nonparticipating manufacturers a decidedly unfair competitive advantage -- an intolerable advantage that cannot be condoned any longer, said AIF president and CEO Barney Bishop III.

Dosal contends that it should not be liable for fees now, since it was excluded from the agreement in 1997. To enact a special tax would jeopardize the company and its employees, Dosal claims.

Spurred by the Big Tobacco lobby, state Sen. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, is working on legislation to impose the fee on Dosal -- a move that Bishop says is only fair.

The time has come to look beyond Dosals empty rhetoric and analyze the facts. Dosal claims to be Little Tobacco although they are the second-largest in cigarette sales in Florida," Bishop said.

"Dosal also argues a Florida surcharge will destroy them even though they already pay equivalent surcharges in 14 other states -- the truth is that they hypocritically refuse to do so in their own home state while they continue to make colossal profits."