Amendment to highway bill sideswipes Little Tobacco

The Washington Post ^ | March 17, 2012 | Rosalind S. Helderman

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Nobody mentioned tobacco last week when the U.S. Senate adopted an amendment to the $109 billion federal highway bill.

But tucked into the 5,600-word amendment to provide aid for rural schools was a single paragraph that would settle a two-year-old fight between Big Tobacco and a small Ohio company that builds a do-it-yourself machine that allows smokers to get their cigarettes a lot cheaper.

The amendment would reclassify tobacco shops that offer the machines as “tobacco manufacturers,” imposing on them new regulations and higher taxes, and it opens a window into the ways of Washington, where the powerful and the connected can sometimes win even before the opposition knows the game is underway.

“This is catastrophic,” was the response of Phil Accordino, whose tiny company builds the roll-your-own cigarette machines in Girard, Ohio, when he heard of the Senate action. Word arrived in Ohio after the amendment had already been approved on a bipartisan vote.

Officials with the tobacco companies, and allies who include some public health advocates, counter that they’ve been trying to crack down on ultra cheap and unregulated cigarettes, which they contend skirt tax and health laws.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who sponsored the Secure Rural Schools amendment, said that the $346 million program supports schools and road projects in Montana and elsewhere. He said the $97 million tobacco provision helps provide “critical funding” for the program by closing a loophole that some smokers have been using to avoid taxes.

Enjoying a tax loophole

“Roll-your-own cigarette machines take advantage of an unintended tax loophole, and that isn’t right, so this offset closes it,” he said in a statement.

But Accordino says the case illustrates how corporate America can quietly use its political influence in Washington to secure wins on the business battlefield.

[Gabz]

I believe they only name a type of machine, no specific brand. There was another article about this, but I don’t remember if it was here or not.

It all boils down to what PM wants PM gets. They’ve been getting tobacco shops with these machines - or at least the machines- shut down everywhere they can find them.

It’s good to see you as well. I read/lurk a fair amount, but don’t post nearly as much as I used to do.

[elkfersupper]

Oh, I am with you. I routinely walk through the grocery store with an UNLIT cigarette just to clear the fat chicks out of the candy aisle.

[elkfersupper]

Would you care for a home-made beer? I'd swap a few for a pound of backstrap.

I would surely do that, but for some reason, I have not drawn a permit in the last several years (supposedly on a lottery basis). The reason might be that the in-state resident permit costs tens of dollars and the out-of-state non-resident permit costs hundreds of dollars. Plus they make the out-of-state hunters hire an outfitter and I am my own outfitter. So, there you have it.

[elkfersupper]

Phillip Morris’ concerns are misplaced. They have made a strategic decision that it is easier to manipulate the U. S. Congress to act against these niche entrepreneurs than it is to persuade the U.S. Congress to repeal what they have already done and get out of the nanny-state business altogther. Truly an unholy alliance and one that demonstrates that we the people have allowed the various governments to seize way too much power.

[Gabz]

No, my dear FRiend, you are underestimating the goal of PM - which is to control, through government fiat, the tobacco industry in all of its form.

PM welcomes the nanny-state with open arms. PM knows they are safe as long as they go along with anything any level of government desires - they put up token resistance, but that is just for show. They know as long as they eventually appear to be caving they will continue to exist and be the de facto tobacco monopoly.

[CSM]

Or as TGO would describe what both of you are saying, this is CRAPITALISM! Crony Capitalism, which is just as offensive to individual liberty as marxism...