That is why I have rolled my own for over 4 years! 
Posted on 10/25/2005 6:59:09 AM PDT by SheLion
ALBANY, N.Y. - The world's largest shipping carrier, UPS Inc., will stop delivering cigarettes to individuals in the United States under an agreement announced Monday with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
The agreement is the latest in federal and state efforts to combat the sale of under-taxed cigarette and to fight underage smoking. Most under-taxed or untaxed cigarettes are sold by Indian tribes, where the taxation of sales to non-Indians is disputed.
Monday's agreement leaves only the U.S. Postal Service among major carriers to continue to deliver cigarettes to individuals, Spitzer said. He called that practice "an embarrassment." Spitzer continues to negotiate with Federal Express, but they are thought to handle a small amount of the trade, said Spitzer spokesman Marc Violette.
Despite a new policy adopted by the Postal Service in September to refuse delivery of illegal products, the federal service allows employees to accept packages suspected of containing under-taxed cigarettes, Spitzer said.
"Internet cigarette traffickers are increasingly using the federal mail system to distribute their wares," Spitzer said. He said the Postal Service "clearly" has the authority to refuse to deliver cigarettes to individual smokers. "It is an embarrassment that major private companies have stopped carrying contraband cigarettes, but the federal government continues to accept them," said Spitzer, a Democrat running for governor. "Congress needs to step in and stop this practice immediately."
The Postal Service can't stop delivery even if it suspects a package clearly marked as coming from a retailer contains untaxed cigarettes, said Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan.
"There could be souvenirs in the package. We don't know because we can't see inside the package," he said.
Instead, the Postal Service will watch for packages if advised by law enforcement agencies. They also will alert law enforcement agencies when the service is shipping those packages, he said.
"It's up to law enforcement agencies to enforce the law," McKiernan said.
He said private companies have contracts with firms that regularly use their services which identifies materials being shipped. The Postal Service doesn't.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's illegal," said Audrey Silk of New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment and a Libertarian Party candidate for New York City mayor. "They are exploiting children ... when you employ `for the children' you can get the public to do anything."
Earlier this year, DHL banned cigarette deliveries to individuals nationwide and the nation's largest credit card companies stopped processing payments for cigarette sales.
Spitzer said Internet and mail-order cigarette retailers violate federal, state and local laws governing taxes and underage smoking. Sales to minors also violate federal wire fraud and mail fraud laws, he said.
The agreement with Spitzer matches a nationwide policy at UPS aimed at avoiding the difficulty of complying with a "patchwork" of different state laws enacted in 28 states since 2003, said Steve Holmes, spokesman for the global company based in Atlanta. He said he had no estimate of how much business would be lost.
"Regardless of that issue, we believe it's a prudent business decision and we want to do what's right, of course, by the laws, but we want to do right by our customers and we want to do right by our communities as well," he said.
Violations of the UPS policy would eventually result in suspension of service, according to the agreement.
States lose more than $1 billion a year in tax revenue from Internet tobacco sales, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Enforcement, however, has been difficult, even though in many states, including New York, the Internet sale of tobacco products is illegal.
How about lower cig taxes and people will buy them from the corner grocery again...
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You are kidding, right? Lower taxes? Smokers are hooked on cigarettes --- the government is hooked on your HUGE tobacco tax dollars!!!
The postal service said they cannot do this. They have to hire on more people to open every "suspected" package, etc, and they just won't do it.
The lawmakers have a fit over cigarettes passing through the mail, yet say nothing when it comes to child porno? Go figure.
"Eliot Spitzer is one scary man."
A liberal activist willing and able to use threats and police power to push his agenda is indeed scary. He will be scarier when he is the governor (which is probably inevitable).
That is why I have rolled my own for over 4 years!
I have always smoked menthol, so no, sorry.
This jerk is interferring with the interstate commerce. He is prohibiting the interstate sales and delivery of a legal product and the courts should shoot this down.
The again, I'm sure our politically charged courts will discover a penumbra floating around Saturn that allows another chunk of our freedom being subverted by a fascist attorney general.
"Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution for the United States of America, paragraph 5 states simply: “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”
They will claim to be taxing articles IMPORTED into the state.
Seems to me that drug dogs could get the job done easily enough.
If Spitzer is so intent on wiping out deliveries of cigarettes to regular citizens, he should start with the state's prison system. When I retired two years ago, inmates were allowed to buy cigarettes through facility commissaries. At that time, I was under the impression that inmates paid no tax on the tobacco products they bought. Although they weren't allowed to smoke on the dorms, they were able to smoke outside the buildings. According to the departmental directive #4911 dated August 16, 2005, they were still allowed to receive up to two cartons of cigarettes a month from visitors either through the mail or on visits. Is Spitzer going to crack down on the delivery of cigarettes that arrive at facilities through the regular post office? He wants to be Governor so bad, he should start cleaning up in the prison system before he goes after John Q. Public.
While I agree with your sentiments - I don't see how the courts can do anything, this is a "voluntary agreement" between a private entity and the AG (much like the MSA)
All this from a state that expects you to pay taxes on cigarettes for the privilege of being told where and when you can smoke those cigarettes. Only in New York.
Heck, I don't even smoke, both my parents died of lung cancer, my only brother smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day when he had his first heart attack (the 2nd one killed him at age 51), yet I believe people have a right to smoke where and when they like and if they can get their cigarettes tax-free, more power to 'em.
This is the same guy who refused to step in when that downstate Mayor decided he was going to conduct same-sex marriages. It took a local DA to do the job Spitzer should have been doing. The guy's a putz.
Looks like it's fedex then.
He should change his name to Eliot Sputzer.
Agreed, but if the law passes it will make it illegal for online vendors to mail tobacco products with any carrier. Whether that law can (or will) be enforced, and whether or not tobacco vendors will attempt to use USPS anyway, is another matter. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Which just shows that they don't care about smokers quiting only punishing them through high taxes.
I'm thoroughly confused with this. It appears they are only going to do this with cigarettes, not OTP (other tobacco products).......My husband gts his cigars from Florida and they come via UPS.
I have a few words to use as descriptors for mr. Spitzer - but I will keep it clean and stick with another poster's term - PUTZ.
I always found it interesting, in light of all the taxation that goes on, that in the early days of the Republic there was a rebellion caused by the federal tax on whiskey. I guess our forebearers were made of sterner stuff than we are.
Of course, the rebels lost.
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