BINGO!!!
Posted on 07/31/2002 7:51:30 PM PDT by RCW2001
Internet Smoke Shops Lure Tax-Averse Cigarette Buyers
By HARLAN SPECTOR
c.2002 Newhouse News Service
As state after cash-strapped state slaps hefty tax increases on cigarettes, smokers are flocking to Internet sites where they can buy tax-free.
Hundreds of Internet smoke shops have come online in recent years, offering a vast selection of premium and discount brands and the enticement of tax-free smoking.
Anti-tobacco activists complain that Internet vendors are unregulated, making it easy for kids to buy online.
Meanwhile, some states are looking for ways to collect the excise taxes cigarette smokers are dodging. Massachusetts and other states have sought customer names from Internet vendors, but they have little leverage to force the issue.
The Ohio Department of Taxation asks a handful of out-of-state vendors for customer lists every year.
"We haven't had very good response," says department spokesman Gary Gudmundson.
"None of these (vendors) report," says Gary Kirschner, chief executive of eSmokes.com. Kirschner says his Internet smoke shop now has 450 competitors online, compared with 30 when his company started in 1999.
"Eighty percent are Indian reservations," he says. "They never report anything to anybody." Sales of cigarettes on Indian reservations are exempt from state and local taxes by law.
Demand is greatest from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey, which levy the nation's highest smoking tax -- $1.50 per pack.
Kirschner says eSmokes also is seeing a jump in customers from Pennsylvania, which raised its tax to $1 a pack on July 15.
New York tried to outlaw Internet and mail-order cigarette sales, but a federal judge struck down the provision last year.
Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., is drafting legislation in Congress to prohibit Internet sales to minors and require that cyberstores be licensed in every state in which they do business.
Age verification at dirtcheapcig.com is typical of Web vendors: "Click here to enter only if your (sic) are 18 or older".
Dr. Rob Crane, a Columbus, Ohio, family physician and anti-smoking activist, says Internet sales threaten efforts to reduce smoking rates with higher taxes.
"It ought to be illegal to sell across state borders," says Crane, who is also part of a campaign to raise the smoking age to 21.
The 55-cent-per-pack tax in his state, where adult and teen smoking rates are among the highest in the nation, may not be enough to drive large numbers of smokers to Internet vendors. Shipping charges keep Internet prices in the ballpark with brick-and-mortar retailers.
Tobacco dealers dispute evidence that higher taxes discourage smoking. They say the tax burden only shifts dependence to low-cost brands and out-of-state vendors.
"It's not people giving up the habit," says Joshua Sanders of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants.
"They're just going somewhere else."
(Harlan Spector is a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. He can be contacted at hspector@plaind.com.)
Undoubtedly caves were involved.
That's because Al Gore invented caves.
BINGO!!!
Oh sure! Just like if you "eh eh" too much, you will go blind. One kid said "well, can I "eh eh" until I need glasses?" Give me a break. LOL!
My uncle smoked three packs a day and had "5" girls!
Smoking Lamp?
For just being a "myth," there sure is a lot of literature out there on the subject including THIS.
Just check google and you will see TONS of similar material online.
I saw one article citing a survey concluding that most smokers think cigarettes are eight times as harmful as they actually are.
For every link that the anti's put in print, we can produce a link to counteract it.
Medical Liars - Do It For The Money
And Doctors are the WORST ones to put forth inaccurate, deceitful and dishonest information about smoking. Most of them or their hospitals, are in the pocket of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The more health care controls and restricts smoking, the higher grant money they will receive. They are chopping off the head of the smoker in order to feed from blood money from the RWJ Foundation:
Geez, ya look great for your age, Methuselah.
;O)
Also, if smoking causes impotence, how do you explain the huge families people are having?
The anti's have an agenda to do away with smokers and smoking. They will blame EVERYTHING on smoking hoping to scare enough smokers into quitting. Once we have researched all of this nonsence, we aren't falling for it.
Chief Wallace shrugged and lighted another cigarette. "If they're so bad, make them illegal," he said. "In the meantime, leave me alone."
ROFLOL! I adore Chief Wallace!
Also:
I smoke, it’s a dirty nasty filthy habit but hey, I’ve helped pay for the Browns and Indians stadium (sin tax) and now I’m paying more tax to help balance the state budget. Doesn’t that entitle me to a little respect? Perhaps not.
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