DHL won’t ship Internet cigarettes
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DHL agrees to end cigarette deliveries to individuals
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July 5, 2005
By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. — One of the world’s largest package delivery companies will stop delivering cigarettes to individual consumers nationwide under an agreement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer said DHL is the first major shipping company to agree to the ban and negotiations continue with other companies and the U.S. Postal Service. The agreement follows a March deal in which major credit card companies began refusing to participate in Internet sale of cigarettes nationwide.
The agreement in March involving Spitzer and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was aimed at ending a common method for youths to obtain cigarettes, which can”t legally be sold to people under 18 years old.
In Tuesday”s Spitzer agreement, DHL cuts off another route for the Internet cigarette sales, a growing business, Spitzer said.
Audrey Silk of New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment said the actions are simply boosting an illegal market for cigarettes in which no one asks a consumers” age. The measures deny consumer choice, because some brands are only sold out of state.
“When the product is legal, who are you to say I can”t order it?” said Silk, who”s also a Libertarian candidate for New York City mayor. “He”s attacking one consumer class trying to buy a legal product and strong-arming the common carriers into going along with his campaign to keep cigarettes out of adult hands.”
DHL General Counsel Jon Olin said the agreement is in the best interest of customers and the public. The company will still be able to deliver tobacco products to licensed retailers and other authorized recipients.
“By taking a proactive approach, DHL is pleased to be the leader in the prevention of illegal cigarette sales in the United States,” Olin said.
State and federal law enforcement agencies have since 2004 sought to crack down on Internet sales of cigarettes partly because they lack age verification for the buyers and partly because it costs state and local governments billions of dollars in sales tax.
States lose more than $1 billion a year in tax revenue from Internet tobacco sales, according to the ATF. Enforcement, however, has been difficult, even though in many states, including New York, the Internet sale of tobacco products is illegal.
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DHL won’t ship Internet cigarettes
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July 6, 2005
BY ROBERT TUTTLE
STAFF WRITER
Shipping company DHL Worldwide Express has made an agreement with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to stop shipping cigarettes sold over the Internet illegally to individual consumers, a practice state officials estimate costs New York millions of dollars annually in lost tax revenue.
“We don”t want people using DHL if they are going to avoid paying taxes or ship to minors,” said Michael King, senior legal counsel for the express shipping firm.
Yesterday”s agreement with DHL represents the latest development in New York State”s effort to stop illegal tobacco sales. It comes nearly four months after credit card companies – under pressure from the attorneys general of New York and a number of other states, as well as the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – agreed not to process payments of illegal Internet tobacco sales.
“The agreement that we are announcing today is not based on a lawsuit. It”s not based on a threat of lawsuit,” said Mark Violette, spokesman for the attorney general”s office. “We simply worked with DHL to make them aware that the industry for which they are shipping is an illegal industry.”
Violette added that the attorney general is also in discussions with UPS, FedEx as well as the U.S. Postal Service to secure similar agreements.
FedEx spokeswoman Kristin Krause said her company only delivers cigarettes to licensed entities, not to individuals.
“We don”t deliver to consumers. Never have,” she said.
Peggy Gardner, a spokeswoman for UPS, said she could not comment on the specifics of discussions with Spitzer”s office. She said that UPS does ship to individual consumers, but only through licensed cigarette dealers who are expected to follow the laws as they apply in various states, and in New York such online shipments are illegal.
The number of online tobacco sellers has been proliferating rapidly, Violette said, and attempting to shut them down individually would be too difficult.
“It”s like playing Whack-a-Mole; you just whack one, and another one pops up,” he said. “Rather than playing Whack-a-Mole, it was more judicious use of our resources to work with the shippers.”
But Audrey Silk, founder of New York City”s Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, a group that advocates for smokers, said, “DHL has crumbled under the bullying of a powerful person and a powerful office to go along with what we deem is a denial of free commerce.”
