--snip--
They note that Priority Mail, which officials say is most frequently used to ship cigarettes, cannot be inspected without a search warrant or the consent of either the sender or the recipient.
To get into this investigation of cigarette mailings...means not only a search warrant, but additional manpower. The Post Office folks are in a serious competition with FEDEX and UPS...and really can't afford to add more onto costs. I can understand the issue at hand...but the state has pushed enough taxes onto a product...in the same fashion as England did in 1760-1770 with tea import to the US. We are now at the point where people are willing to do illegal (at least with a stupid law) movement of items. That should be a hint of more things to come.
No problemo, just label the evil weed as "Wine." The supremes just gave the OK for internet vino sales.
No second hand smokey, but wino drunken drivers oka-dokay?
I just want to say as a citizen of New York- that I am just honored my state government cares this much about my health! I mean it's not like this is about money or anything! lalalal
There is nothing illegal about those cigarettes. If the buyer doesn't pay local taxes on something bought in interstate commerce, that's a local problem, not a federal one. The states, in their hunger for money, raised the taxes so high that out-of-state purchases can save a lot of money on a legal substance. Now they want the federal government, and private industry, to collect those ridiculously high taxes for them, for free.
The least the states could do is offer a cut of the tax money to the companies that snitch for them.
I don't smoke, but my freedom from stupid taxation is at stake here, too. Governments can no more repeal the laws of the marketplace than they can the laws of physics.
You don't give a damn about my health. It's the money. And you're proving it with these tactics.
If New York just cut their ciggie tax down to size they could fix the problem immediately.
US Constitution
Article I
Section 10
paragraph 1
Powers prohibited of States No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
States have these as well.
If I purchase something, whether from an individual or a business, it IS a contract.
The post office is delivering these DESPITE what the states say simply because they cannot interfere with an 'obligation of contract'
Since the FBI is an ILLEGITAMATE division of government, they have been stopping the PLANES, but even they can't stop the mail!
If Congress DOES try it, we SERIOULY need to look at a class action lawsuit.