I can well imagine!
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.)
Nah! Just up early. LOL! I got more energy then usual this morning. Must be because it cooled off some.
They lit up a cigarette.
I can well imagine!
I smoked twenty years and thought the risks were a lot lower.
I don't support taxes or banning smoking anywhere.
I believe second hand smoke is a scam.
I also now know cigarettes are fatal to 15 out of every 100 smokers(thats just lung cancer, not to mention emphysema and heart disease).
Lung cancer kills about 160,000 Americans every year.
I don't really see the parallel to sunshine with statistics like those.
A lot of smokers don't like to hear these facts, and I don't blame them.
I also now know cigarettes are fatal to 15 out of every 100 smokers(thats just lung cancer, not to mention emphysema and heart disease).
We all have to die from something. I would rather die knowing I enjoyed my life, then if I had sat in a corner rocking all my life, not enjoying life and things I find enjoyable.
I don't really see the parallel to sunshine with statistics like those.
The anti nico nazi's say that "second hand smoke" is a Class A Carcinogen. I said " the sun is also a Class A Carcinogen. Are they going to ban it too?"
YES!
Be nimble, the are starting to sell out fast, very fast when they get a shipment of popular brands
Physician, heal thyself.
Anti-smoking activist?
Scary; why would anyone patronize a doctor who seems to have so much free time on his hands?
His competency must not be current if "activism" is his specialty.
Go for it; Make yourself the new Madeline O'Hair: go for outlawing tobacco altogether. Your sanity would be less open to question, as well as your honesty.
Unfortunately, a problem that a few thousand additional customs agents won't fix.
They can't keep killers off our airliners, but they can enforce tobacco criminal penalties no problem.
What's wrong with this picture?
"We're from the government and we're here to help."Undoubtedly caves were involved.I wonder how far back in time/history that phrase originates.
-Eric
Unfortunately, California is one of those.
I have heard of one poor soul who has gotten over a dozen letters from the state demanding payment for internet purchases.
He has ignored them all, but if the recent past is any indication, I expect a tragedy sometime soon, when the state, in it's usual heavy-handed way tries to force collection.
But a few deaths should be OK. These people are now criminals.
Are you aware that when any smoker dies at any age, that the death is automatically listed as smoking-related?
So much for statistics, more statistics and lies.
Give me your lifestyle and I will identify a half-dozen life threatening bad habits you have that are also none of my business.
Not sure its the IRS that gets the list. I understand it goe to the state taxing authorities. At the end of the year you could end up being billed for all the state taxes you thought you avoided. NOT GOOD.
Yeah, those rates are like military px rate low. If you read their website they explain the risks and benefits to ordering from them and how they're able to do it. I figure you could start out with a $32 order for TWO cartons of marlboro lights (if you can find them - next supply comes in Aug 2nd) and see what happens.
I just found out about this site a few weeks ago, however today is the first day of my lastest attempt to stop smoking, so I never actually ordered from them. :)
$3.50 a carton? Retail? WOW you must be a old feller.
He needs to order under the name Gray Davis. :)
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