shipping tobacco

[liberty2014]

Howdy, i love chew and i go through about one pouch of levi a week. Im paying a little over $10 a pouch and just found out most of what im paying is taxes. I have family in LA, KY, and WV. Im sure they get chew for a lot better price that we do here. If i had them ship a few pouches at least 5 at a time could either of us get in trouble?

[DocV]

I am not a lawyer but I can google:

http://www.ttb.gov/tobacco/faq_answers.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/t ... 8_697.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[nyj]

Nothing like buying cancer.

[jimlongley]

When I was a kid my mother would drive from our home in upstate NY to Bennington, VT to buy her cigarettes. The NY State Police were aware of people doing this and would set up a "lemonade stand" just west of the border and stop everyone and ticket anyone whose cigarettes did not have a NY State tax stamp, even a single pack bought for personal consumption. My mother thought it was grossly unfair because of the amount of effort put forth, and gas she had to use, not to mention taking time out from her golf. I don't remember how many times she got ticketed, but I knew the one trooper by his first name ;).

My buddy's father drove truck for a NYS State company (Gorea?) and would make little trips into Canada and bring back hundreds of cartons. I don't know if he ever got caught.

I don't know what TX laws are like, but I would tread carefully.

[The Annoyed Man]

When I was a kid my mother would drive from our home in upstate NY to Bennington, VT to buy her cigarettes. The NY State Police were aware of people doing this and would set up a "lemonade stand" just west of the border and stop everyone and ticket anyone whose cigarettes did not have a NY State tax stamp, even a single pack bought for personal consumption. My mother thought it was grossly unfair because of the amount of effort put forth, and gas she had to use, not to mention taking time out from her golf. I don't remember how many times she got ticketed, but I knew the one trooper by his first name ;).

My buddy's father drove truck for a NYS State company (Gorea?) and would make little trips into Canada and bring back hundreds of cartons. I don't know if he ever got caught.

I don't know what TX laws are like, but I would tread carefully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_ ... ted_States

When I lived in NYC back in the early to mid 1970s, cigarette trafficking was a profitable and active business of organized crime. I was a smoker back then, but I never bought my cigarettes anywhere other than the local smoke shop around the corner from me on 2nd Avenue, just above 83rd Street. Now, where HE bought his inventory, I have no idea...... In 1978 (the same year I left New York), Congress passed the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act of 1978, and it was last updated in 2012: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C114.txt.

According to the code:

Code: Select all

-HEAD-
    Sec. 2341. Definitions

-STATUTE-
      As used in this chapter - 
        (1) the term "cigarette" means - 
          (A) any roll of tobacco wrapped in paper or in any substance
        not containing tobacco; and
          (B) any roll of tobacco wrapped in any substance containing
        tobacco which, because of its appearance, the type of tobacco
        used in the filler, or its packaging and labeling, is likely to
        be offered to, or purchased by, consumers as a cigarette
        described in subparagraph (A);

        (2) the term "contraband cigarettes" means a quantity in excess
      of 10,000 cigarettes, which bear no evidence of the payment of
      applicable State or local cigarette taxes in the State or
      locality where such cigarettes are found......

Violation of the law is a felony act punishable by up to 5 years in prison, but you have to be found in possession of more than 10,000 cigarettes not bearing the tax stamp for the state in which you are in possession. Clearly, federal law cannot be used to prosecute someone from New York who goes to Vermont to buy a couple of cartons of cigarettes. State law is another matter entirely, and I'm sure that NY is as bad as CA in that regard. They have a thing in Sacramento that poses as a legislature, and whose primary purpose seems to be to sit around and think of new ways to squeeze money out of the proles.

The libertarian in me says that all of these laws, state and local, are no different than any other drug control laws......which we know to be expensive to enforce, difficult to enforce, have ZERO impact on the actual use or the distribution of the controlled substances, and the enforcement of which have probably more than any other single influence contributed to the erosion of the 4th Amendment. These laws serve merely to justify enormous bureaucracies at the state and federal level, and they are all about revenue; and they have had no impact at all on the public health. People still smoke. People still drink. People still use pot and heroin and methamphetamines. If we, as a nation, kill ourselves off with lung cancer and drug overdoses and cirrhosis of the liver, then that is what we as a nation deserve. NOBODY is putting a gun to anybody's head and forcing them to use these vile substances. It is nothing but weakness of character that makes us use these things (and I include myself in this accusation), and weakness of character has consequences—among which in this particular application are poverty, disease, addiction, and early death. I wish I had all the money back which I threw after these things when I was younger and less wise, and I wish that I did not have to worry for the damage I may have done to myself while I was using any of them.

Me, I'm an EX drug user/cigarette smoker, and there are none so obnoxious as someone like me when we get on our soapboxes—but I speak the truth, and truth is inconveniently obnoxious sometimes. That doesn't ease the sorrow over loved ones lost to these terrible scourges. I miss my dad as much as anybody else misses a parent/sibling/child lost to cancer or alcoholism or drug overdose. But we only have ourselves to blame for the spiderweb of laws against these things, the loss of freedom therein, and for the terrible effects these things have upon our lives or the lives of our loved ones. I guess I'm wearing my pessimist underwear today.

[jimlongley]

When I was a kid my mother would drive from our home in upstate NY to Bennington, VT to buy her cigarettes. The NY State Police were aware of people doing this and would set up a "lemonade stand" just west of the border and stop everyone and ticket anyone whose cigarettes did not have a NY State tax stamp, even a single pack bought for personal consumption. My mother thought it was grossly unfair because of the amount of effort put forth, and gas she had to use, not to mention taking time out from her golf. I don't remember how many times she got ticketed, but I knew the one trooper by his first name ;).

My buddy's father drove truck for a NYS State company (Gorea?) and would make little trips into Canada and bring back hundreds of cartons. I don't know if he ever got caught.

I don't know what TX laws are like, but I would tread carefully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_ ... ted_States

When I lived in NYC back in the early to mid 1970s, cigarette trafficking was a profitable and active business of organized crime. I was a smoker back then, but I never bought my cigarettes anywhere other than the local smoke shop around the corner from me on 2nd Avenue, just above 83rd Street. Now, where HE bought his inventory, I have no idea...... In 1978 (the same year I left New York), Congress passed the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act of 1978, and it was last updated in 2012: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C114.txt.

My experience was in the 50s, and I don't know what sort of ticket my mother received, but it was just that, and the police confiscated the cigarettes.

Interestingly enough, since my father was in the Air Force reserve, my mother could have gone to an exchange and bought them legitimately for less than she spent driving to VT. She discovered this later and then ran her own bootlegging operation buying exchange cigarettes for her friends.

[Abraham]

I know condemning folks who enjoy any and all tobacco products is popular, but before we become judgemental (an oft used liberal term) let's keep in mind:

Are you overweight/obese, but avoid tobacco?

Do you booze it up, but avoid tobacco?

I could keep listing other human failings, but I think you can see where I'm going without belaboring the subject...

[pcernuch]

is anyone else humming eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'??

god bless.

[sunny beach]

Howdy, i love chew and i go through about one pouch of levi a week. Im paying a little over $10 a pouch and just found out most of what im paying is taxes. I have family in LA, KY, and WV. Im sure they get chew for a lot better price that we do here. If i had them ship a few pouches at least 5 at a time could either of us get in trouble?

Can you still buy tobacco tax free on the reservation?

[JP171]

if I remember correctly you may bring 2 cartons per legal age smoker into Texas tax free, but no more I think the same applies to cartons bought on a reservation, you may bring 1 liter or 5th of alcohol per legal age person tax free after that you have to pay taxes or run the risk of going to jail

[PUCKER]

I, and many others, buy the majority of my cigars online with substantial discounts. I'm sure there is a similar source for what you seek.

[Topbuilder]

Nothing like buying cancer.

Reminds me of an old sayin' about sayin' nothin'.

[mamabearCali]

I am with TAM here. I don't smoke, and I have about 1 Mikes Hard lemonade a month (helps with minor back pain). I do however have a love affair with salt. I like salt....(I salt my tomato juice) my BP is 106/68 so medically I am good, but if they can (and are) nanny stating us with alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs as Bloomyboy in NYC has shown us eventually they will get to something you like. Be that bacon, salt, fizzy drinks, or (for you healthy people) raw milk.

[The Annoyed Man]

I do however have a love affair with salt. I like salt....(I salt my tomato juice) my BP is 106/68 so medically I am good.....

My sister from another mister!!! I love salt, and my BP is around 106-110/60-70, depending on how long I've been sitting down before the nurse measured it. I really like the taste of beer too, but I'm the kind of guy who'll buy a 6-pack, and most of a year later, the 6-pack is still in the fridge, untouched.

To Abraham, Yes, I am significantly overweight but avoid tobacco. OTH, I'm not that judgmental of others who smoke/dip, so long as I don't have to breathe their smoke or clean up their spilled spit-cup. It's a free country.....or it used to be....If you want to light up, by all means go ahead; just don't ask me to breathe your smoke with you. So how that translates is this: if you got here first, when you light up, I'll get up and leave because I respect that you got here first. But if I got here first, and you want to light up, I expect you to have the decency to get up and leave. BTW, I am an EX-smoker.....1-2 packs/day of Marlborough Red for maybe 10-15 years.

It's kind of like wanting to eat cornflakes and the need to tinkle. I promise not to bring my cornflakes into where you're tinkling, if you promise not to tinkle where I'm eating my cornflakes. It's called common courtesy. All too often, smokers (including myself, back when I was a smoker) are inconsiderate of the non-smokers around them. Non-smokers have a right to not have to breathe the products of someone else's cigarette combustion. So when smokers are subjected to critical comments, it is often their own fault for having been inconsiderate. OTH, I honestly have no problems with a considerate smoker. The light's on. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Just don't ask me to pay for your hospital bill with my tax money when the inevitable happens. People have a right to smoke if that's what makes them happy. They don't have a right to be offended if I tell them to blow their smoke in another direction or else move along. If they won't blow their smoke in another direction or move along, then I have a first amendment right to express my displeasure in language they might not like, and if that offends them, they can stuff their offense right where the sun don't shine.

This is how we all learn to get along as adults. I submit one of my favorite comedic scenes from the movie Big Trouble:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=mu_cYrDFU18[/youtube]

And mind you, I do enjoy a good cigar every once in a great while....