Presenting for your illogical taxation amusement:

Loose tobacco taxation:

Based on the “future-cigarette” theory. A Future Cigarette is a cigarette that’s not-yet-made but it’s tax is already paid.

If the Future Cigarette is ever made, it will be made by a manufacturer who worked for nothing and received no benefit.

Future Cigarettes necessarily weigh an exact and predetermined amount or the tax (which is already paid) will be incorrect and illegal.

Future Cigarettes are 50% tax but aren’t half as dangerous.

By fixing it’s RYO tobacco tax rate, a state can prevent any revenue loss from smokers switching from regular cigarettes to RYO, while also making the RYO products much less attractive and accessible to youths.”

RYO is a centuries old industry in no need of a bailout, so this is what their “fix” actually means:

By manipulating and raising it’s reasonable and traditional RYO tax rates, a state can assure maximum gouging of it’s citezens through prejudicial taxes on affordable RYO “kit products”  to keep their smokers addicted to “regular cigarettes”  (the ones that were previously established in US courts as specifically engineered for high consumption) therefore making the RYO kit products unaffordable  (eventually unavailable to everyone) in the future and ensuring a reliable and continuing revenue stream.

In a nutshell, RYO was too affordable and not generating enough money for the government and these worthless special interest groups.   Keep in mind, the farmer sells a pound of cured cigarette tobacco for around $2, by the time the consumer is able to purchase the tobacco the price will now shoot up to around $45lb (was about $15.00 pre-S-CHIP)!  The lionshare of the remaining $43 is taxes and MSA, by lionshare we’re talking over $30!   Smoke em if you got em, after all….it’s for someone elses kids!

Check out their site, it’s full of great ideas!  I guess cigars have been broken all along, I see that they’ve already figured out how to “fix” them too.   Hopefully liquor bottles (by the shot glass I presume) will be next, and who knows, chips by the chip and sodas by the sip.   I’ve read of something so udderly ridiculous as to tax cows by the fart, maybe we’ll be next.   That would be simple with modern technology I imagine, just shove a microchip where the sun don’t shine and start counting the revenue!   Why not, it’s for the children.  Maybe the children should be allowed all the farts they can rip out till they’re 18, at least let em get that old before they go insane.  Can we do it?

The S-CHIP revision is by far the largest tax increase in written history on a single product.  A product that’s consumers happens to be a much maligned minority of late;  the smoker.  Tobacco tax is slated to go up across the board with cigars increasing at about 60 cents a stick, loose pipe tobacco up around $3 per lb and packaged cigarettes up the least at 60 cents a pack.   The RYO loose tobacco tax, or Roll-Your-Own cigarette loose tobacco increases from just over $1 per lb to a whopping $24 per lb!  This on the poorest of the poor and variously challenged smokers.  Cigarettes will be out of reach for the homeless, poverty stricken, laid off, retired and mentally ill across the nation.  A pack of home-mades will shoot to brand name levels regardless of  the time, equipment and efforts expended by these do-it-yourselfers.  The RYO market generates less than one half of one percent (0.5%) of the of the total tobacco revenues accrued in the US each year.  The brunt of the tax being placed on the shoulders of the destitute, unemployed, misfit, handicapped, injured, laid off and retired is obscene.  In the end, the tax on the final product will constitute  80% of the retail cost!   That’s no misprint neither, no single product in the history of the United States has been taxed anywhere close to this.   One would be hard pressed to find any taxation equivalent in the entire history of the civilized world.

A segment in RYO also exists that do keep up with the Jone’s and smoke RYO for reasons other than economics.  This group chooses an all natural,  100% tobacco product as opposed to the 50% common to the prepackaged cigarette industry.  These RYOers don’t want the additional, unknown long term health implications caused by the chemical cocktail called a cigarette in the commercial cigarette industry.   They also don’t care for the forced ingestion of the unknown toxins replete in  the FSC* mandated packaged cigarette papers.   When much of the RYO industry is forced to close doors due to the overwhelming tax increases, not only will it’s patrons suffer a smaller selection but risk losing their choice in it’s entirety.   This will likely end up legislating an entire class to return to a product no longer fit for human consumption.

The RYO industry itself is being put in jeopardy in a two step manner.  The increased price of tobacco will cause much of the allure of roll-it-yourself to disintegrate losing both it’s veterans and significantly decreasing any new customer base.   The final killer to many of the retailers is the Floor tax where the tax of $24.78 per lb on any existing stock as of 04/01/09 becomes immediately due. This Floor Tax could well end up being the demise of the entire industry while Big Tobacco ironically gets it’s wish.  The RYO industry is a much different animal than the Big Players whose huge factories billow smoke 24/7 and suit and lab coat adorned staff conducting experiments within.  In RYO there’s the farmers for supply, small businesses all along the line for distribution, packaging and redistribution to Mom and Pop shops and neighborhood tobacconists for final sale.  All down the line jobs will be lost and compromised with thousand losing work and savings,  risking their families well being and future.   Big Tobacco will come out nicely with a modest price increase and a drove of ex-RYOers falling back into line to buy their chemical laden, fire safe doses once again.

Exactly what the government is thinking is perplexing at first glance.  The smallest and weakest effectively being killed off by our government who will then ironically bolster the most checkered industry in the US,  operating lawfully by a slim and questionable margin.  The real affront is to the sick, unemployed, laid off and retired who will no longer be able to afford one of the few luxuries they still endear.  Many do not realize that tobacco is not just a simple luxury  but a necessity in which once-naive youngsters, fell victim to an immorally marketed yet legal addiction they either cannot or will not break.  The fact that these self righteous take comfort in a victory targeted at the poorest and the weakest while those who can afford the extra 60 cent spanking might even share in the benefits is testament in itself.

Tobacco’s revenues rival some of the most powerful resources in our world’s economies.  Tobacco’s power and appeal both lie in the simple fact that it contains one the most addictive drugs known to man; nicotine.  Appealing to the addict for obvious reasons but even more so to the legislators. This gives the abusers of tobacco an unique power to be sure; legislation.   Addiction allows inequitable legislation to be passed, taxes to be levied in the most unscrupulous of manners otherwise unimaginable by today’s enlightened.  Taxing the poor and the weak; the minorities,  and doing it with the support and plaudits garnered through vilification.

Recently, PACT,  a most powerful tobacco control bill fell to the House for approval.  The House overwhelmingly passed the bill which now goes to Senate and eventually empower the government to gain yet more control over the sale of this most powerful of weeds.   While this bill certainly might have some good measure to it, the auspice that terrorists are using counterfeit cigarettes to fund their mischief is a bit much to swallow considering the availability of illicit drugs with exponential profitability.  The addition of the prohibition of mail order loose tobacco for (DIY/RYO cigarettes) though is the curious part of this bill.

In order for this to happen, , the Jenkins act of 1949 which allows for the state to state sale of tobaccos for personal use through the mail,  will need to be amended.  This manipulation of this decades old Jenkins Act  screams of yet another instance of gaining control for taxation and control purposes.  Taxation of the poorest of the poor, the DIY smokers.   All this is palatable and even admirable due to the vilification of tobacco by the very abusers who stand to profit.

It’s cool though because smokers stink and if they have to manipulate the tax system like this it’s best to keep it to people like that.   None of this is gonna affect most people and it might even reduce SHS.