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The tobacco industry
is campaigning on Capitol Hill to block a Pentagon plan to raise the price of
discounted cigarettes sold in scores of military grocery stores around the
world. The military
sells $458 million of cigarettes and chewing tobacco a year in government-subsidized
commissaries, at 30 percent to 60 percent less than prices in commercial grocery
stores. Commissaries sell 58 million cartons of cigarettes a year. Government
budget analysts estimate the plan could cut tobacco sales at commissaries in half
and cost tobacco companies as much as $200 million a year in sales. Under the
Pentagon's plan, which is scheduled to take effect on Nov. 1, the government would end
its subsidy of commissary tobacco products in an effort to discourage tobacco
consumption... A Defense Department report estimated that tobacco use by
military personnel costs the agency more than $900 million a year in
medical expenses and
lost productivity. But at the urging of the tobacco industry's powerful lobby, a
panel of the House National Security committee in a letter signed by all 12 members, has
demanded that the Pentagon cancel the price increase... 70 percent of the tobacco
products are being bought by retirees. Diseases attributed to tobacco use accounted
for about 16 percent of the deaths in the military last year, according to the
inspector general's report. |