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Internet cigarette sales and Native American sovereignty: Political and public health contexts

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Abstract

Internet cigarette vendors (ICVs) advertise low prices for tobacco products, subverting public health policy efforts to curtail smoking by raising prices. Many online retailers in the United States claim affiliation with Native American tribes and share in tribal tax-free status. Sales of discounted cigarettes from both online vendors and brick-and-mortar stores have angered non-Native retailers and triggered enforcement actions by state and federal governments in the United States concerned over lost cigarette excise tax revenue. Examination of the history and politics of cigarette sales on reservations and attempts to regulate Internet cigarette sales highlights the potential role for greater use of negotiated intergovernmental agreements to address reservation-based tobacco sales. Our review notes global parallels and explicates history and politics of such regulation in the United States, and offers background for collaborative efforts to regulate tobacco sales and decrease tobacco use.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a research grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (‘Examining the Sales Practices of Internet Cigarette Vendors: Implications for Policy Development, Implementation, and Enforcement’ – Kurt M. Ribisl, Principal Investigator). The authors would like to thank Alam Blum, MD for his insightful and helpful critique of an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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The authors highlight the potential for greater use of intergovernmental agreements to address controversies that surround tobacco sales on the Internet and on Native American reservations.

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Samuel, K., Ribisl, K. & Williams, R. Internet cigarette sales and Native American sovereignty: Political and public health contexts. J Public Health Pol 33, 173–187 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2012.4

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