Application letter

Dear Mr/Ms X,

I’m writing to apply for an Internship in your Communication agency.

It has always been my intention to have an experience in a commercial environment. I would particularly welcome the chance to work for your agency as I have long admired both by the quality of your clients and its position on the market. As you will notice on my enclosed CV, an internship in your agency suits both my personal and professional interests.

My work experience has familiarised me with many of the challenges involved in Communication today. I am sure that this, together with my motivation, my dynamism and my adaptability, would be extremely relevant to the internship.

I would be pleased to discuss my curriculum vitae with you in more detail at an interview. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me if you require further information. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely.

Laetitia B.

World health organization: studies about tobacco

Costs to the Economy
http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas13.pdf

Costs to the Smoker
http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas14.pdf

By the World health organization

Articles about tobacco

http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=442&sortorder=articledate

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1785028.ece Cigarette firms push for tobacco 'teabags', The Times, 14 May 2007

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/QuitToLive/story?id=1342001

http://tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0072.pdf

Thank you for smoking

This movie is a satirical comedy follows the machinations of Big Tobacco's chief spokesman, Nick Naylor, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son.

The story:
The chief spokesperson and lobbyist Nick Taylor is the Vice-President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He is talented in speaking and spins argument to defend the cigarette industry in the most difficult situations. His best friends are Polly Bailey that works in the Moderation Council in alcohol business, and Bobby Jay Bliss of the gun business own advisory group SAFETY. They frequently meet each other in a bar and they self-entitle the Mod Squad a.k.a. Merchants of Death, disputing which industry has killed more people. Nick's greatest enemy is Vermont's Senator Ortolan Finistirre, who defends in the Senate the use a skull and crossed bones in the cigarette packs.

Taxation

Cigarettes have become very expensive in places that want to reduce the amount of smoking in public; pictured is the cost of a carton of 200 cigarettes in New Jersey.

Many governments have introduced excise taxes on cigarettes in order to reduce the consumption of cigarettes. Money collected from the cigarette taxes are frequently used to pay for tobacco use prevention programs, therefore making it a method of internalizing external costs.

In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity. That's over $2000 per year/smoker. Another study by a team of health economists finds the combined price paid by their families and society is about $41 per pack of cigarettes.

Substantial scientific evidence shows that higher cigarette prices result in lower overall cigarette consumption. Most studies indicate that a 10% increase in price will reduce overall cigarette consumption by 3% to 5%. Youth, minorities, and low-income smokers are two to three times more likely to quit or smoke less than other smokers in response to price increases. Smoking is often cited as an example of an inelastic good, however, i.e. a large rise in price will only result in a small decrease in consumption.

Many nations have implemented some form of tobacco taxation. As of 1997, Denmark had the highest cigarette tax burden of $4.02 per pack. Taiwan only had a tax burden of $0.62 per pack. Currently, the average price and excise tax on cigarettes in the United States is well below those in many other industrialized nations.

The cigarette taxes vary from state to state in the United States. For example, South Carolina has a cigarette tax of only 7 cents per pack, while Rhode Island has a cigarette tax of $2.46 per pack. In Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, New York City, Tennessee, and Virginia, counties and cities may impose an additional limited tax on the price of cigarettes. Due to the high taxation, the price of an average pack of cigarettes in New Jersey is $6.45, which is still less than the approximated external cost of a pack of cigarettes.

In Canada, cigarette taxes have raised prices of the more expensive brands to upwards of ten CAD$.

In the United Kingdom, a packet of cigarettes typically costs between £4.25 and £5.50 ($8.50/$11.00) depending on the brand purchased and where the purchase was made. The UK has a strong black market for cigarettes which has formed as a result of the high taxation and it is estimated that 25-30% of all cigarettes smoked in the country avoid UK taxes.

Effect on healthcare costs

In countries where there is a public health system, society pays for the medical care of smokers who become ill through increased taxes. Two arguments exist on this front, the "pro-smoking" argument suggesting that heavy smokers generally don't live long enough to develop the costly and chronic illnesses which affect the elderly, reducing society's healthcare burden. The "anti-smoking" argument suggests that the healthcare burden is increased because smokers get chronic illnesses younger and at a higher rate than the general population.

Data on both positions is limited, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published research in 2002 claiming that the cost of each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States was more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity. The cost may be higher, with another study putting it as high as $41 per pack.

Conflicting points of view about the tobacco industry

There are two entrenched interests that have opinions about the tobacco industry: (a) participants in the industry, and (b) people affected by the deaths attributable to tobacco use. These interests conflict as they involve large amounts of money, long-held (historically) belief systems, and the premature deaths of loved family members.

Participants in the industry argue that commercial tobacco production is a vital part of the American and world economy. They state that thousands of farmers in the United States, alone, make their living from raising tobacco leaves for use by the industry. They estimate that the tobacco industry contributes billions of dollars in tax revenue to the federal government every year.

People affected by or sympathetic to the large death rate attributable to active and/or passive tobacco use cite the fact that half of all tobacco users die from tobacco-related causes worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, that means that about 650 million current smokers will die from a preventable cause. They also indicate that smoking-related health problems contribute to rising health care costs.