Tobacco products face varying levels of taxation in different locations, creating opportunities and incentives for illicit trade. Cigarettes are taxed at the federal, state, and in some cases, local levels. According to industry representatives, taxes and other fees make up significant components of the final price of cigarettes, averaging 53 percent of the retail price. This book examines incentives that are important for understanding cross-border and illicit trade in tobacco products; and different schemes used to generate profits from cross-border and illicit trade in tobacco products.

The great Tidewater planters of mid-eighteenth-century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans-Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that stressed personal autonomy.

T. H. Breen's study of this tobacco culture focuses on how elite planters gave meaning to existence. He examines the value-laden relationships--found in both the fields and marketplaces--that led from tobacco to politics, from agrarian experience to political protest, and finally to a break with the political and economic system that they believed threatened both personal independence and honor.

In recent years, tobacco politics has been a multi-layered issue fraught with significant legal, commercial, and public policy implications. From the outset, Martha A. Derthick's Up in Smoke took a nuanced look at tobacco politics in a new era of "adversarial legalism" and the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the MSA (Master Settlement Agreement). Now, with a brand new 3rd edition, the book returns to "ordinary politics" and the passage of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act which gave the FDA broad authority to regulate both the manufacture and marketing of tobacco products. Derthick shows our political institutions working as they should, even if slowly, with partisanship and interest group activity playing their part in putting restraints on cigarette smoking.

Last year, lawmakers reintroduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation (H.R. 1108, S. 625) to give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broad new authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, advertising, promotion, sale, and use of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. Amended versions of both bills have been reported out of committee and await floor action in their respective chambers. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has stated in a July 21, 2008, letter that the Bush Administration "would strongly oppose this legislation." The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was first introduced in the 108th Congress, the product of lengthy negotiations in which lawmakers sought to balance the competing interests of public health groups and Philip Morris, the nation's leading cigarette company. While these organisations support the legislation, the FDA Commissioner, other tobacco manufacturers, and tobacco industry and convenience store associations have expressed concerns about the bills, which would create a new Chapter IX in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) solely for the regulation of tobacco products. Among their many provisions, the measures would authorise FDA to: restrict tobacco advertising and promotions, especially to children; develop standards that require changes in tobacco product composition and design, such as the reduction or elimination of toxic chemicals; and require manufacturers to obtain agency approval in order to make reduced-risk and reduced-exposure claims for their products. In the mid-1990s, FDA claimed authority under the FFDCA to regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products as delivery devices for nicotine, an addictive drug. The agency's 1996 tobacco regulation was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2000. The Court concluded that Congress had clearly intended to preclude FDA from regulating tobacco products. It found that because the FFDCA prohibits the marketing of products that have not been found to be safe and effective, the statute would have required FDA to ban such manifestly harmful products as cigarettes and smokeless tobacco if the agency had jurisdiction over them. Such a ban, argued the Court, would plainly contradict congressional intent. The Supreme Court's decision made it clear the Congress would have to enact legislation giving FDA statutory authority over tobacco products in order for the agency to assert jurisdiction. Lawmakers first drafted such language in the 105th Congress as part of legislation to implement the 1997 proposed national tobacco settlement.

A landmark narrative of an epic legal battle, Civil Warriors is the gripping behind-the-scenes account of how one tenacious lawyer led the charge against the titans of the tobacco industry.

Drawing on five years of eyewitness reporting, thousands of pages of internal documents, and riveting firsthand stories of plaintiffs, lawyers, jurors, and scientists, Civil Warriors weaves the compelling story of attorney Ron Motley, who, along with other die-hard lawyers, scientists, and tobacco-busters, fought tirelessly to bring the tobacco industry to justice.

Taking us onto the front lines of Motley’s crusade, investigative journalist Dan Zegart follows the attorney to a dangerous underworld where maverick scientists and corporate whistle-blowers step from the shadows to reveal the truth behind the industry “spin.”

We meet the unforgettable cast of characters that draw Motley on toward his goals ... the mysterious ex-Reynolds employee known as “Deep Cough,” who told where evidence on nicotine-laced tobacco was hidden ... the researchers who proved the addictive nature of nicotine — and were advised by the FBI to check their cars for bombs every morning.

And we witness how Ron Motley led his quest for truth, justice, and hundred-billion-dollar awards ... to penetrate, finally, the “control room of the conspiracy,” an inner circle of lawyers who protected tobacco for thirty years. Civil Warriors is at once a grand adventure and a towering work of investigative journalism — an eye-opening report on the way justice really works in America today.

An exploration of the rise of the crop strain that came to dominate the American tobacco industry and its toll on the Southern landscape that produced it Drew A. Swanson has written an "environmental" history about a crop of great historical and economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural product for much of the South, the tobacco plant would ultimately degrade the land that nurtured it, but as the author provocatively argues, the choice of crop initially made perfect agrarian as well as financial sense for southern planters. Swanson, who brings to his narrative the experience of having grown up on a working Virginia tobacco farm, explores how one attempt at agricultural permanence went seriously awry. He weaves together social, agricultural, and cultural history of the Piedmont region and illustrates how ideas about race and landscape management became entangled under slavery and afterward. Challenging long-held perceptions, this innovative study examines not only the material relationships that connected crop, land, and people but also the justifications that encouraged tobacco farming in the region.