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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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UPS Agrees to End Cigarette Deliveries [10/25-2]
Excerpts from: UPS Agrees to End Cigarette Deliveries
By Michael Gormley, AP [10/24/05]
Click here to read the ASH letter to UPS
The world's largest shipping carrier, UPS Inc., will stop delivering cigarettes to individuals in the United States under an agreement announced Monday with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
The agreement is the latest in federal and state efforts to combat the sale of under-taxed cigarette and to fight underage smoking. Most under-taxed or untaxed cigarettes are sold by Indian tribes, where the taxation of sales to non-Indians is disputed.
Monday's agreement leaves only the U.S. Postal Service among major carriers to continue to deliver cigarettes to individuals, Spitzer said. He called that practice "an embarrassment."
Despite a new policy adopted by the Postal Service in September to refuse delivery of illegal products, the federal service allows employees to accept packages suspected of containing under-taxed cigarettes, Spitzer said.
"Internet cigarette traffickers are increasingly using the federal mail system to distribute their wares," Spitzer said. He said the Postal Service "clearly" has the authority to refuse to deliver cigarettes to individual smokers. "It is an embarrassment that major private companies have stopped carrying contraband cigarettes, but the federal government continues to accept them," said Spitzer, a Democrat running for governor. "Congress needs to step in and stop this practice immediately."
The Postal Service can't stop delivery even if it suspects a package clearly marked as coming from a retailer contains untaxed cigarettes, said Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan.
"There could be souvenirs in the package. We don't know because we can't see inside the package," he said.
Instead, the Postal Service will watch for packages if advised by law enforcement agencies. They also will alert law enforcement agencies when the service is shipping those packages, he said.
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