I seem to recall an interview on 60 Minutes (Back in the day when I used to watch broadcast television) with the head of the BATF. He said he would love to see tobacco be made an illegal narcotic. The same as cocaine and meth. I wonder how they would feel knowing that they agreed with a Clintonista; being FReepers and all.
**I also notice a lot of them are somewhat new 'round here**
They also seem to forget that humans have been smoking for thousands of years.
I wonder if there's enough of US to convince one of these Roll Your Own operators to start a lobbying effort. They KNOW that they're next in the crosshairs. They should start acting NOW.
I'm really not sure what the guidelines are for loose tobacco. I know the Smoke Shop in town stocks bags of tobacco from India. I looked at the label: made in India, packaged in New Jersey.
So, India ships over the tobacco leaves, a place in New Jersey chops it up and bags it and sends it out for distribution. There is no tax on the bag. Just a 25 cent surcharge.
The problem with this idea, as logical as it is, is the immediate and swift reaction of the antis and their cohorts in the MSM will label it a Big Tobacco front group which will get them zero exposure.
I kid you not.
Any and all efforts by smokers, or business owners wishing to cater to them, is immediately painted with the same broadbrush. Been there, done that, and it is not pretty.
I have noticed a rather sharp uptick in the rhetoric around here lately. I think that the so-called moral majority (who the heck are they, really?) are really feeling their oats since the election. With all those exit polls stating that a lot of folks based their vote for Bush on "values"--a nicely vague term, btw, it seems they now think they have a license to lord it over everyone else, including other conservatives who don't fit their mold. Another poster on a different thread the other day actually said that the base deserved special consideration...and we complain about the Dems pandering to their base! For good reason, look what has happened to their party as a result! It doesn't even remotely resemble the party of FDR, Truman and JFK. Those were liberals and Democrats you could admire, at least politically.
Another thing is...who decided that they are the base?
They are behaving in the same way as the out-of-control libs and secularists they so despise. They just don't see that they are suffering from the same affliction: the belief that they are right, and anyone who differs from their beliefs is somehow stupid or unworthy. It's sad and depressing. It's good intentions run amok, imo.
Flame away, but keep in mind, I'm not singling anyone out here. :)