States stomp Net smoke sites
p2p news / p2pnet: Big Tobacco’s Philip Morris USA says it’ll stop supplying cigarettes to, “illegal Internet and mail order dealers” as part of an agreement with attorneys general for 37 states and territories.
Its, “voluntarily agreed to end shipments of any of its products to customers, Indian tribes and enterprises that the states deem illegal, says New York AG Eliot Spitzer, quoted by the Associated Press.
For “voluntarily” read “had no choice but to”.
There’s a lot of similarity between Big Tobacco and Big Music.
Neither gives a damn about their customers, they both lie through their teeth and keep on doing so even when they’ve been proved to be lying, they both use law-slingers Shook, Hardy, Bacon, to defend their indefensible positions, and each has teams of expert truth adjustment specialists to con the media.
Most First Nation tribes say they’re sovereign states and therefore, North American tobacco taxes are none of their concern.
Levies on cigarettes and other tobacco products vary wildly state to state and, in Canada, province to province.
This opened a window for a number of First Nations in the US and Canada who were, and still are, selling tax-free smokes. And many of them used the new income to improve the appalling conditions on their reservations .
Philip Morris, together with the other companies such as RJR Reynolds, were often accused of cross-border, inter-provincial and state smuggling, and of supplying cheap cigarettes to First Nations, knowing full well they’d be sold sans taxes directly from the reserves, and under-the-counter off them.
When the Net became popular, a number of tribes launched web sites featuring low-priced smokes.
Now, “The action is the third prong of the states’ efforts to curb the sale of cigarettes to minors over the Internet and by mail order, often to avoid substantial state sales taxes,” says the Associated Press.” In March, major credit card companies agreed to stop processing payments from Internet retailers. Months ago, shippers DHL and UPS Inc. agreed to stop shipping packages from the vendors.”
Spitzer is leading attorneys from 33 states, three territories and the District of Columbia, says AP, which has Philip Morris spokeswoman Denise Keane saying, “Our voluntary agreement … sets a framework for continued information sharing with law enforcement and support of their efforts to eliminate illegal sales of Philip Morris USA products”.
This is akin to Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI claiming they have customers’ best interests at heart.
“The attorneys general consider all Internet cigarette sales to be illegal because they violate one or more state or federal laws aimed at stopping sales to underage smokers and collecting sales taxes,” says AP.
“They said many of the sales through foreign Web sites also violate federal smuggling, cigarette labeling, money laundering and contraband laws.”
Also See:
Associated Press - Philip Morris to stop supplying dealers, January 26, 2006
January 26th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
Collecting Taxes. That is ALL this is about. Any other reason they are giving is trumped up crap. They don’t give a rat’s heinie about underage smoking. It’s all about the Benjamins. Not that I’m letting the tobakee companys off the hook. They are a bunch of slimes too.
January 27th, 2006 at 3:46 am
The picture accompanying this post depicts 3 brands of Cigarettes. Marlboro is the only Phillip Morris Brand. Newport is a Lorrilard brand and Seneca is a private label brand that is produced for the various tobacco outlets operated on Seneca Nation reservations in upstate New York. These would be the ones who continue to piss off Elliot Spitzer.
However, the Seneca’s treaty with the federal government, signed in the early 1800s, essentially gives the Senecas soverignty in many areas plus the right to “freely trade” in tobacco and other commodities such as fur & animal hides. The federal treaty trumps any state law governing subjects covered by the treaty. The issue here is what does “freely trade” mean?
The ones being greedy here are NOT Big Tobacco or the Indians. It’s the State Governments and their insatiable demands for more revenue to support their bloated, corrupt bureacracies. The $264 BILLION settlement wasn’t enough for them. In fact they are borrowing a theme from Big Content in that they are claiming that those who purchase cigarettes from the Indians are ’stealing’ money from the state coffers. No, they aren’t stealing anything. They are choosing not to contribute further to it.
Another lie the States are telling is that their campaign is also aimed at preventing sales to underage minors. In the context of tobacco, this would be persons under the age of 18. Given that the standard practice of the retailers in question is to impose a minimum order of 5 cartons (50 packs of 20 cigarettes), how many 15 year olds are going to order 5 cartons of cigarettes at once? How many have their own credit card or checking account to pay for them to keep them a secret from mummy and daddy? And how stupid are their parents not to inquire about the box when it shows up in the mail? This is the same sort of lie (the ‘protecting children’ lie) that the MPAA proffers in regards to porn when villifying filesharing networks.
One should also note that the article omits any input by the retailers, who are the real targets of the effort. The attorney general group is acting no differently than the racketeer trying to squeeze protection money out of a local merchant by coercing their suppliers not to sell to the merchant. It is NOT the tobacco companys’ responsiblity to collect individual state sales and excise taxes.
So, the article has the same degree of accuracy as the picture accompanying it. One third.
–TurboGeek
PS: This commentary does not address the health impacts of smoking nor smoking etiquette. Comments to this post should not either.
January 30th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
That is very clear thinking. You are absolutely correct.