[Just another Joe]

How long before the black market takes over completely?

[Calpernia]

How can they ban sales over the Net? That does NOT seem right!

[Just another Joe]

Here comes the black market, folks.
Criminals for thousands of miles are probably loading up panel vans as we speak.

[StatesEnemy]

IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!

[Camachee]

When I ordered online last night, the vendor had a warning that orders from NY would no longer be honored. I don't know what other vendors are doing, but mine apparently would rather switch than fight.

[alisasny]

Native American online retailers have begun using the U.S. Postal Service as a loophole to deliver cigarettes to their New York State customers because the law prohibits common carriers, such as UPS, from delivering tobacco products resulting from Internet sales.

[1Old Pro]

How long before the black market takes over completely?

Not long

[Publius6961]

And this is going to be enforced exactly how?

Has the Fourth Amendment been repealed?
Will they open and inspect every package delivered to my house?

Inquiring minds simply wonder...

[sfvgt]

yup......whenever you create a restricted market for something alot of people want, orginized crime moves right in.

[balrog666]

How long until they break out the tobacco sniffing dogs and sic 'em on UPS, Fed-ex, and the USPS?

And why isn't this an unconstitutional infringement on interstate commerce?

[CaptainJustice]

Hehehe... we should set up a network of freepers near New York to get cigarettes to our smoke-starved brethren.

[unixfox]

I can see it now, cigarette outlets on the borders of New York. Just like liquor stores do outside of dry counties.

[spunkets]

NY is attempting to regulate interstate commerce. Specifically they are forbidding their citizens from purchasing from certain retailers located in other states. They don't have the authority to do that. They've done this a few times before though and have been shot down by the SCOTUS.

[Great_Dame]

So how about those enterprising on-line merchants selling somethign else and including a FREE carton of smokes with each purchase of Indian beads or whatever...its the selling of the smokes that is against the law, not the shipping...look for the loopholes

[Myrddin]

Can you make a phone call and purchase the cigarettes with a verbal transaction and credit card number? That isn't the internet. Did the politicians cover that alternative? If you purchased from another state in that fashion, it would be interference with interstate commerce to prohibit such a purchase.

[VRWC_minion]

Told you so (again)

Roll your own will be next on shopping block.

[cinFLA]

NASCAR dumps Winston; signs Nextel as sponsor.

[Saundra Duffy]

Can't they go to an Indian Reservation to buy cheap ciggies?

[CSM]

I actually by mine by mail order from a tribe in NYS and they are still very cheap, the difference is that they are mfgd. by the tribe and still subject to the mfg. tax, but not the sales tax.

[Coleus]

ping.

[SwankyC]

prohibits the delivery of cigarettes purchased over the Internet to a consumer in this state and specifically targets Internet sales. A violation is a class A misdemeanor and can bring a jail sentence of up to a year.

This is moronic. What are they going to do, throw the postman in jail?