No online ordering?

[TropicalBob]

Check out what Utah is proposing as law. I said awhile back that the goal of current legislation is to drive all tobacco product sales to the local tobacco store, where taxes can be collected and products controlled.

This proposal would ban Internet ordering of all things tobacco (and e-cigs could be added with the addition of a few words). No, no one has explain why. The explanation is simply "control."

Other measures awaiting passage would stop postal delivery, stop alternative delivery via FedEx, UPS, etc. to all but business addresses, stop use of credit cards for purchase of tobacco products, and complicate insurance for any business selling tobacco products (insurance companies fear lawsuits against sellers, not just makers, of deadly products, like suits against bartenders who let a person drink too much before driving; no law is needed for this, and it's already happening to small tobacco stores).

The new "anti" rallying cry: If we can't ban it, make the hassle unbearable.

Bill urges stiff fine, prison for ordering tobacco online - Salt Lake Tribune

 

[Vince1]

Hi Bob, So as it is now the proposal only indicates "tobacco" products? This could be a harbinger of doom if it goes further. I wonder how much the local smoke shops will want to get our juice for us?

 

[katink]

Wasn't there a government proposal underway to book all use of money-transfer on internet, for everything - so they can get to whatever person buys whatever they don't like? Or was that still in the planning and not actualy in the gov.-pipeline yet?

 

[TropicalBob]

Right. Tobacco is still the target for most laws, including this one. E-cigs aren't there yet -- thankfully. I think many of us see the anti-tobacco tactics as a harbinger of things to come for us, however. In a way, the less we look like "smoking," the better for our future.

Katink: I'd heard of that but dismissed it as "will never fly."

 

[smokingclam]

Well this would certainly suck. I purchase all my pipe tobacco online due to the fact the local shops don't carry blends I like. I could see making you pay the tax on it but to ban it all together?

 

[section817]

ill believe it when i see it...

 

[MikeMac]

Is that bill in the US Senate or Utah Senate?

The article doesn't say.

The Nanny State strikes again!
(or at least is trying) It's all about TAXES! TAXES, TAXES! $$$$$

As an aside; I used to get Marlboros from Andorra or Lichtenstien for a good deal. Until my friend's shipment was confiscated by US Customs. I stopped doing that. Besides, I would really go through the analogs fast knowing I had 10 cartons lined up. 8-o

 

[TommyGunBC]

Utah is a messed up state , influinced by a crazy religon !!

 

[TropicalBob]

This is a Utah proposal for forbidding online ordering. The other proposals on shipping, etc., are national in scope.

SmokingClam, I too have ordered various latakia blend pipe tobaccos online, but I see what's coming -- quite clearly -- and have now settled myself into Carter Hall, which I likely will be able to buy at a local tobacco store for the rest of my life.

Sure, it'll cost more soon ... but at least I'll have it.

 

[smokingclam]

For what its worth I quite enjoy Prince Albert in the can. For the price you can't beat it. Unfortunately I'm a man of variety and need different blends. I enjoy the GL Pease and Dunhill brands the most. Funny part is I used to live in NY land of the high tobacco tax. That's where I order my pipe tobacco from on the web....tax free of course.

 

[Tallulah]

Several years ago, the state of Illinois went after taxes from Illinois smokers who had been ordering their cigarettes online, and collected them, to the tune of over $2.7 million.

A pack of Marlboro's at my corner store here in Chicago cost $8.75 last night.

Don't for a moment think that these devices won't eventually be taxed to death, too.

 

[smokingclam]

Several years ago, the state of Illinois went after taxes from Illinois smokers who had been ordering their cigarettes online, and collected them, to the tune of over $2.7 million.

A pack of Marlboro's at my corner store here in Chicago cost $8.75 last night.

Don't for a moment think that these devices won't eventually be taxed to death, too.

Yep pretty soon I'm sure we'll see a "Nicotine Tax" so they can tax this too.

 

[Cellmeister]

Isn't Utah A Bomb Testing Site??

 

[Kitabz]

A pack of Marlboro's at my corner store here in Chicago cost $8.75 last night.

Don't for a moment think that these devices won't eventually be taxed to death, too.

Wow, cigarettes used to be so cheap in the USA compared to the UK anyway but that's about the same as here from a corner store (~£6 ~= $9)

I wonder how they can realistically collect the equivalent amount of tax on a bottle of juice though - if we say 2ml a day on average = a pack a day this would mean that a bottle would cost about $150; more than Channel No. 5!

Maybe they'll just ban the juice and stick the tax on prefilled carts to bulk it up a little.

 

[section817]

well right now in texas a cheap price for a pack of marlboro light 100's is about $4.50 and theres a sign up in the window everywhere that theres a new nationwide tax as of like march 10th or something ...its another $6.50 ontop of the carton prices as of now... or another .75 cents a pack basically. i dunno all i know is when i get my next pay check im stocking up on carts and juice probably 200 bucks worth lol...LOT OF JUICE. The government is looking for anyway to make a quick extra buck

 

[TropicalBob]

Kitabz, just a guess but ... e-cig packaging must become more cigarette-like to be easily taxed, as we all seem to agree will be government's desire. After all, an ex-smoker is lost tax revenue. That money needs to be replaced. It won't be easy to tax batteries, atomizers, liquids, carts. Those are difficult to regulate, as well. But it will be very easy to regulate and tax a single-unit disposable e-cig.

I see the FDA getting involved within months. Big fight ensues. Shipments get halted. FDA orders enforcement. E-cig makers ask, "What will please you, oh Big Brother." And the FDA, after hearings, says the devices must be childproof, tamper-proof, fire-proof and not useable for any but the express purpose of delivering nicotine vapor. A 2mg maximum on nicotine strength will be imposed. Higher strengths will be declared addictive and too dangerous.

E-cigs will then be sold in packs of five, and tobacco taxes will be the basis for their taxation. No refilling. No carts. No battery to charge. Just a single-unit metal tube containing battery, atomizer and liquid cart, ending with a small hole for inhalation.

And, frankly, we might be lucky if even that survives government scrutiny.

 

[Sunshyn]

Could e-cigarettes be marketed as portable vaporizer or some such? As soon as I started looking into them, I could see uses in the herbal remedy market, not to mention as a placebo or even for candy vaporing . They are really neat devices!

The nicotine juice, OTOH, couldn't use that type of reasoning. I'd personally prefer to see e-liquid bottles come with childproof caps, not because I have children (I don't), but because an accident could bring the regulations crashing down. It would be nice if companies considered upgrading their packaging with that in mind, but I don't know how feasible that would be for them.

 

[Randall Fox]

...And, frankly, we might be lucky if even that survives government scrutiny.

The scenario you posit seems like a nightmare to anyone who has substituted vaping addiction for analog addiction.

Unfortunately, it seems all too possible. It wouldn't surprise me if your scenario is even too optimistic - ecigs may just be flat-out banned and never gain any legally recognized status.

In that case, I guess we should stock up on hardware and learn how to make our own juice from home-grown tobacco (assuming that they don't make growing tobacco illegal also).

 

[Lithium1330]

The scenario you posit seems like a nightmare to anyone who has substituted vaping addiction for analog addiction.

Unfortunately, it seems all too possible. It wouldn't surprise me if your scenario is even too optimistic - ecigs may just be flat-out banned and never gain any legally recognized status.

In that case, I guess we should stock up on hardware and learn how to make our own juice from home-grown tobacco (assuming that they don't make growing tobacco illegal also).

Or we can grow our tobacco and vaporize it, I don't know why we are not doing it yet, vaporization of the plant looks as safe as vaporization of liquid made in China by who knows who (maybe even looks safer).

 

[TropicalBob]

I tried vaporizing tobacco, Lithium, and it works! I have a spoonful in front of me now; it's been soaking in vegetable glycerine for a week. Pull the core out of a cartridge and stuff that cart with soaked pipe tobacco. Now vape.

Problem for me is I have no idea how much nicotine is in that vapor. But I think we could indeed add flavoring, etc., to tobacco, soak it all and vape it. I have some Bickford Kahlua (PG based) that I'll try soaking tobacco in next.