sue the recipients of the cigarettes also I would think. Aren't they asking FedEx to act as an enforcer?

In California a few years ago we had proposition 187, which required teachers and doctors to report illegal immigrants. California had the good sense to vote it down.

You could make a reasonable assumption.


This is designed to skirt taxation laws - we don't like it when the 1% do it, we shouldn't like it when anyone does it.


If you want your tax-free Indian Cigarettes, drive to the Rez. Otherwise, you are breaking the law.

$4.35 in tax for each pack of cigarettes. Maybe if the taxes were of a more reasonable rate (maybe $2 or $2.50), people wouldn't want to skirt the tax laws.

The taxes aren't high enough as they don't cover the cost cigarettes place on smokers and the rest of society.

because of what they view as unreasonable taxes on their vice. The cost to society are not their problem. They are just trying to live their lives. They have a choice of paying $4 a pack at the rez or nearly $10 in the city. If they can save money by going around the law, you have to make the law more reasonable. Make it more expensive to go elsewhere. How much is shipping? Make the cost less than that. Getting something is better than getting nothing.

and move to do what CT did...and prosecute individuals buying on the rez (a sovereign nation, co-existing and outside US legal jurisdictions) and transporting tobacco into the state for purposes of tax-avoidance. (It's a fine. Getting caught and fined $500/pack makes cheap cigs less appealing.)

And no, you don't have to make the law more reasonable...the law exists for a reason. I wish the revenues gained were earmarked for smoking-cessation and other specific anti-smoking activities but they're not.

This guy really has it out for cigarettes. Adults should be able do ingest whatever they wish...no government, religion, corporation or civic group can tell somebody what to do with their own bodies. These people think they are God...it's appalling.

1) Religious, government, and corporate groups often tell people what to do with their bodies. Or, more often, what not to do.
We mandate people not to commit suicide.
We mandate people not to use PCP for recreational purposes.
We even have made it so you cant buy pseudophed in many places.

2) Specific to taxes on cigarettes... All it is is asking smokers to start paying their fair share. It doesn't tell anyone what to do, or not to do, it just helps put the cost of their actions back in their own pocketbook. If we could do the same with the oil companies and the like for the products of their industry, the world would be far better place.

http://www.cancer.org/myacs/eastern/areahighlights/cancernynj-news-ny-tobacco-funds-up-in-smoke

Almost all the money from taxes & the huge tobacco settlements goes into states' general funds where it's spent on anything and everything. Government is DEPENDENT on tobacco taxes... they don't really want smokers to quit.

They spend a token amount on smoking cessation, and the rest goes to fund street repairs or whatever non-smokers also use.

Where are they going to get all that tax money as more and more smokers quit?

I think a child has sickened & died every year since I quit, seeing as how I'm not paying for SCHIP any more.

"1) Religious, government, and corporate groups often tell people what to do with their bodies. Or, more often, what not to do.
We mandate people not to commit suicide.
We mandate people not to use PCP for recreational purposes.
We even have made it so you cant buy pseudophed in many places."

Just because "we do it" doesn't make it right.

Bloomberg made it illegal to smoke cigarettes unless you're 21 or over. But you can be tried as an adult much younger and even die in wars abroad. Embracing the nanny state will lose elections.

about Congress not states and cities regulating national commerce.

The government can't make a buck off the reservation who is selling tobacco legally without taxes, so they have to go after a company expecting them to cover the taxes. Technically, and with their agreement in legal question, all parties are not doing anything illegal.

They must know this since they are charging FedEx with a public nuisance. That is a trumped up charge and used only if they can't think of anything else.

What a POS