As for The PACT Act signed by "Mr. Constitutionalist" Obama, this bill prohibits The Post Office (USPS)
from carrying and delivering online/out-of-State tobacco purchases, excluding cigars of course.
This was passed Unanimously by Congress without a single objection in response to Our States crying over lost tobacco tax revenue...except those excise taxes are mercantile in nature, that is, they are paid by the local distributors and passed on to the customers as the reimbursement, not as a tax on the customer, so the so-called "lost taxes" is actually due to a drop in sales, but that will also happen if and when us smokers quit due to the denial and disparagement of our habit caused by these unjust local taxes and prohibitions.

The United States Constitution Article 1 Section 9 prohibits excise taxes and duties levied on articles exported from any State.
It is Unconstitutional for any State to demand those taxes, yet The PACT Act requires out-of-State tobacco merchants to pay them.

Now I know you hate tobacco, but consider this. There is a very good reason why these taxes are prohibited, and the reason is to ensure that OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND MERCHANTS ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO We The People. When We The People are ignored by Our Local Government, We have The Right to shop elsewhere until the local merchants and State governments decide to Represent Us as they are required to instead of cowing to those who object and who are not personally affected by their unusual legislations and taxations except to reap the benefits like parasites.
There is no such government which exists unto itself. Government in America exists for Our Liberty and Our Posterity and must earn Our Taxes by providing the services which We want and Need in our individual segments, not by the least common denominator and NOT BY THE PREJUDICES OF ANY MAJORITY AGAINST OUR INDIVIDUAL SEGMENTS.

Else, THERE ARE NO RIGHTS FOR ANYONE, CAPS INTENTIONAL.

Tobacco is THE ONLY ONLINE PRODUCT PROHIBITED DELIVERY BY USPS BY The PACT Act.
All other online purchases are still legal and still UNTAXED in accordance with Our CONSTITUTION, with exceptions for products by companies conducting business locally. Those companies' products are State-taxed, i.e., Panasonic in California, etc.

And yes, the tobacco merchants and the antismoking tax gluttons of California have gotten very shitty with representing tobacco products. Selection is now very poor unless you like Big Tobacco Marlboros and Winstons/Camels (Ammonium Sticks: I thought those were the cause for the Master Settlement Agreement. The companies responsible are still using it and yes, they do not smell so sweet. They stink like dry ash). The irony of it is, all of these efforts to control and eliminate tobacco use as an excuse to corrupt our system of Liberty for unreasonably high and discriminatory tax $$$ in conjunction with the passage of The PACT Act means that I no longer have access to Ultra-Light loose tobacco locally and cannot purchase it online.
If I wish to continue to smoke and pay those outrageous taxes for Rob Reiner's children (California's First Five Program, totally unrelated to special tobacco issues), then I will be smoking full flavor tobaccos based on the local shitty supply with 4 times the tar and 4 times the nicotine content of Ultra-Light tobaccos...
...so what was the argument again?

EDIT: As for The American Cancer Society, I used to buy in to their charity drives 'For the Cure".
Anymore, they have become a lobbyist group to reap the taxes "for research money".
They would do well instead to find ways to clear the body of piss and those preservatives which block starch carbohydrate metabolism and which do not remove themselves from the system without a puke, phosphates and ammonium carbonates for instance.
I have no faith in store bought products which strip the necessary electrolytes (biological salts) and nutrients from our starches and flours and then often add phosphates and other crap. The body depends on combining phosphorus with digested starches and sugars in order to release the energy from carbohydrates, so if the phosphorus/phosphates are pre-added, then the food is already spent, and the same happens when the phosphates put a hit on the kidneys and instead of passing, they compile through the blood and liver back to the stomach.
Phosphorus compounds also impede iron absorption and oxidize our antioxidants like Vitamin C,
although organic phosphorus is also necessary in a healthy diet. It's about the type and the amount and the ability to manage and remove excesses.

If you don't like the tax, don't smoke. Smokers are an unliked part of the population and politicians know that they can always raise taxes on smokers without feeling the wrath of voters. I agree that the tax is excessive, but I do not think it is unjust. Perhaps if there was a beneficial use, but there is not.

I also like to drink alcohol and Washington has a nice 51.9% tax. I live in Spokane which [was] a non-attainment area under the Clean Air Act. This requires me to pay for a $30 emissions test every year for my car. I also have to pay for car tabs once a year and a drivers license every five years. I like to drive my car and it certainly has more benefits than does smoking.

The only good thing about smoking is that it alleviates Social Security costs.

As for your point about not being able to smoke in private places, like bars, I 100% agree. If an employee or customer doesn't like the smoke in my business, perhaps he should A) have worked harder in school OR B) he can go fuck-off.

The difference between smoking and driving is that smoking is completely private, while driving requires you to use public roads and vehicles that pollute the atmosphere, hence the requirements for driving license and car inspections. I'm not saying I'm in support of those measure, just pointing out that there's a difference.

And I agree with resident: there are lots of citizens that are treated as second class, because their (otherwise legal) behavior is not tolerated by the majority. Smokers, drug users, drinkers, fetishists, gays, the rich, etc. all fall into this category.

Poor rich people...

Only 30 to 37%? That sounds pretty sizable.

Of course it does sound sizable.

Of all lung cancers, only 30 to 37% are smoking/Second-Hand Smoking-related.

In the year 2007 The American Cancer Society estimated 8,885 new cases of lung cancer in the State of California, both smoking and non-smoking/Second-Hand Smoking-related.
http://www.ccrcal.org/PDF/ACS2007.pdf

The population of The State of California is greater than 36 Million people.

The smoking population of The State of California is reported to be greater than 14%, 5+ Million smokers.

5 Million+ smokers sound much louder to me.

I think that people who have a family history of cancer or heart attack should not smoke, period.
However, we are talking about 8,885 cases per year of all lung cancers including non-smoking related out of a smoking population of 5+ Million smokers and a total State population of more than 36 Million Californians, so that is still less than one percent of the State's smokers and only roughly Three One Hundreds of One Percent of the total Californian population. For heart disease we are talking about 660,000 smoking related cases out of a total of 1.7 Million cases in 2001, so that comes to about eleven percent of the smoking population, still not the same as "a clear and present danger".
At a rate of eleven percent heart disease, I have to believe there are other factors involved.
As for heart disease cases in 2001, that figure of 1.7 Million total cases including non-smoking related might be inflated due to stress caused by 9-11, so I might want to check the stats for a more recent, peaceful year before accepting them as being reliable.

No, they're not poor. That is not a justification to constantly impose or threat to impose more taxes on the rich just because they are rich.


That's nothing! Did you know that 100% of cancers are reported in people with significant amounts of dihydrogen monoxide in their bodies? Clearly something must be done!

Taxes are higher for the rich because they control a higher stake of the wealth. Really, taxes coming from the very wealthy are proportionately lower than their wealth.

Second-hand smoking doesn't harm others, global warming is a lie, blah blah blah.

Umm, that's a given. Rich people are, umm, rich. SHOCKER! The point is the rich are constantly targeted with threats of new taxation because it is politically acceptable to do so, just like it is to tax smokers, drug users, etc, not because there is an actual benefit to doing so. Notice Obama's rhetoric: "no new taxes on people making less than $250K a year". Why single out the category of people who make more?

You clearly don't understand the underlying point about statistics. Let me spell it out for you: any number can sound scary if framed properly.

i'm still trying to figure out how 250k is rich. still amazes me.

It sounds an awful lot like trivialization. Or to say causation is non-existent.

Also, I'm in Philly this summer.

Given the figures provided by the American Cancer Society,
does Three Tenths of One Percent of the total Californian public at risk of developing lung cancer sound like "trivialization"?
Why doesn't the ACS focus on educating people with a family history of cancer to not take risks instead of attacking those of us with no history of cancer (or heart disease) in the family?
Maybe it's because the ACS is phishing for tax dollars, but obviously, a substance that is reported to cause cancer in less than one percent of its direct users (not second-hand smoke) is hardly the cause. By comparison, rat poison kills predictably at percentages much higher and quicker than < three one hundredths of one percent else it would be considered to be highly ineffective.

Don't you think the low rate of causative risk from tobacco is the reason politicians do not mind living off the tobacco taxes?

Jesse Helms? Oof.

I consider it payback for the decades of lying.

Because only a small percentage of Americans earn that much, and when you do have that much you're not struggling to pay the bills.

I'm always amazed at how rich people never think they're rich.

You know, I might be more satisfied if the 250K level was ignored the first year in favor of a constant annual income of 250K/year. It's not easy to make that kind of money and some people get lucky once in their lives, but then that's all the money they might ever see while age catches up to them, and then interest rates these days are not so hot.
Wouldn't it be nice if the first Million was tax free while then applying the high tax rate only on continued high annual incomes?

$80,000 to me would be enormous.

In the rural Midwest, $80,000 can get you far.

i dont make that much, in fact, I make faaaaaaaaar below that

Do you happen to know of a specific location or region?
I'm very interested in finding a better place to live right now,
one with no glitz and no personal cutthroat competition when compared to...

The Dakotas, possibly?

Oh you mean North? Too much snow for me there.
I was hoping you'd say Missouri or somewhere more temperate.

Central Pennsylvania would be just fine. You can rent a nice house for like $300 a month.

Yeah, but dude, it's Central Pennsylvania. Gives me the creeps just driving through.

Penn State's flagship town is a cool place, though.

I'm from Pennsylvania. Bats and rats, hawks and rabbits and badgers, and don't forget the copperhead snakes,
but the backwoods roads are narrow and wicked, and you might encounter a deer dead on just around the bend.

Then Missouri isn't going to be much different.

Yeah, I can't say it's worse than rural Misery, cuz it ain't.