Count MA as someplace else this is happening, that article is what three years old and I've never had a problem .. until today. Guess why...
The new state tax went into effect this week, doubling the taxes we were already paying on them , generics are like six bucks a pack now, name brands are 6.75 and up in state and not only did the tobacco store owner tell my husband that the state is now trying to monitor all internet sales and purchases of cigarettes, both coming into and leaving the state, to make sure they get their cut and that 'is' why their doing it, their not even trying to hide it or blame it on the kids. To add insult to injury they have also posted state troopers out along the NH border since it went in to stop people coming back into the state just to check to see if their bringing home to many cartons of cigarettes because they want to make sure its not worth it for them to spend the gas to cross the border to buy a ton of them like people used to. Two carton limit, yet I can buy a computer and all its many accessories in NH, I have, and cart it right across the border no problem, no state taxes. Their actually stopping people just to count their cigarettes. Its insane, its probably costing them today's tax money in cigarettes just to keep them out there wasting their time on that, this is what we're paying taxes for , for troopers to sit around counting cartons of cigarettes.
The new tax is like a 1.50 , so now we're paying about 3.00 at least in taxes per pack , actually I think its more because there was already a tax on them when they added the last dollar fifty tax. When they threw that one up, after everyone had already started quitting, they at least pretended it was going to state funded stop smoking programs , pretended mind you I never heard of a single free state funded program here nor was ever offered one. Their not even bothering to pretend this time though.
Litigation and kids have nothing to do with this, its just flat out greed and laziness, they know there are more non smokers then smokers, a lot of smokers quit here when the first tax that high went in and I'm sure that will happen again, their trying to make a bigger profit but their tax is just going to drive it right back down to where it was before they put it in. But they know not enough people are likely to care enough, since it doesn't effect them yet just those evil smokers, to make enough noise about the rest of this stuff for it to matter.
I wonder what they will pin their three dollar tax on to keep the state govt afloat when it inevitably looses more of that smoker income due to its own insanity, since apparently smokers are the only ones that owe the state support.
Meanwhile mind you, they want to put legalizing pot on the ballot here this year...I would say that was contradictory considering the great lengths their going to, out of the kindness of their hearts to get us to quit and keep our kiddies off cigarettes...if it didn't make it so blatantly obvious that this has not a damn thing to do with how bad burning herbs are for adults or children, but only with lining their pockets
Ilyanna
