Close but No Cigar

Image via WikipediaI used to enjoy the occasional fine cigar, but it has been a while since I had a good stogie.  When I was partaking of fine cigars, I could only enjoy them outside of the house, usually if I was golfing or doing yard work.  Mrs. Dickster would not let me have them in the house.  One cold winter day she let me fire up a log in the basement but she quickly came down to tell me she could smell them up on the top floor of our townhouse.

For a variety of reasons, I gave up my vice of smoking fine cigars.  I still have some of my cigar paraphernalia around the house.  I still have a couple of humidors lying around the house along with some cigar cutters and a few of the cigar torches that I used to fire up my logs.  I am reminiscing about my former love affair with cigars because of an email that I received from one of the companies that I used to order cigars from.

I have long known that my home state of Maryland is a bastion of liberalism.  One of my blogging buddies, Harrison Price of Capitol Commentary has frequently called his home state of California the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia.  I think the same could be said of Maryland.  While the local news was flooded with potential laws like gay marriage, increasing the gasoline tax, increasing the alcohol sales tax, and Maryland's passage of their version of the Dream Act (the last two passed) they also managed to sneak in a new cigar law.

Even though I no longer smoke cigars, I still get emails from some of the companies that I used to buy cigars from.  Below is the text of an email that I recently received from one of them.  Apparently, it is now illegal to receive orders of cigars through the mail in the state of Maryland, which is how I used to get the bulk of my cigars back in the day.

ATTN: all cigar customers residing in Maryland

Effective May 1st, 2011, a new law (http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/fnotes/bil_0008/hb0088.pdf) has declared it illegal to ship cigars into the state of Maryland.

You heard that right. Unbelievable as it may seem, Maryland legislators took away your right to choose where you buy your cigars. We at Cigars International, like many others in the cigar industry, believe this to be an un-American affront to freedom – and will increase the cost of a cigar to you.

Here is the question for you as a resident of Maryland: is it the responsibility of the state to dictate from whom you can and cannot purchase? Bear in mind, handmade cigars are a legal product. Cigars are no different than sneakers, pencils, or books in terms of interstate commerce. A state cannot arbitrarily choose to close its borders to a legal product, for any reason.

We need you to help overturn this ill-conceived piece of legislation.

Sadly, Maryland legislators think they are protecting a small handful of retail cigar stores in Maryland who, rather than compete in the marketplace on service, selection and pricing, chose to persuade state legislators to approve an anti-choice, anti-freedom, and anti-American law at the 11th hour. Competition is good. Competition is American.

As a Maryland resident, you should be outraged. Today it's cigars. Tomorrow it will be something else. Enough is enough. It is time to fight back.

HERE IS WHAT I AM ASKING YOU TO DO TODAY: The Maryland state Comptroller is Peter Franchot. I urge you to contact him today. Tell him you're a voter, you enjoy cigars, and this law limits your choices and freedom. We must make our voices heard or who knows what will be illegal tomorrow.

You can reach Mr. Franchot by calling him at 1-800-552-3941 or emailing him at pfranchot@comp.state.md.us.

Or you can mail him at
Comptroller of Maryland
80 Calvert Street
P.O. Box 466
Annapolis, MD 21404-0466

It is definitely troublesome to have the government ban a legal substance.  While it is disturbing, I am more concerned about the state passing a law to give in state tuition breaks to illegal immigrants when the state budget is operating at a deficit.  I will be signing a petition to try to get an initiative on the ballot to repeal that particularly loathsome bit of legislation.

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The Ugly Truth About Sin Taxes

Image by ColumbusCameraOp via FlickrOur governmental leaders (usually Democrats) like to tell us that sin taxes are for our own good.  They tell us that the reason that they are putting taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol is that they want to deter us from consuming products that are bad for us.  It is for our own good, after all.  The truth of the matter is that it is just another way for the government to line their coffers so they can spend, spend, spend.

States and the federal government have been raising taxes on tobacco consistently over the years.  In most jurisdictions, the majority of the cost of a pack of cigarette goes to the government, not the tobacco companies.  This morning I was going through some emails at my office.  I receive a lot of email news letters pertaining to the convenience store and retail food industry.  One of the articles that I read today further solidified for me the truth about sin taxes.

CSP is a magazine pertaining to the Convenience Store and Petroleum Industry.  On their website today, they had posted an article about three states (New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) that are considering lowering their cigarette taxes.  Their reason for going against all the national trends of raising cigarette taxes?  Their hope is that by lowering their cigarette taxes that they will draw consumers from other states over state lines to buy cigarettes, increasing sales and revenue.  Now I ask you, do you really think cigarette taxes are to deter you from smoking?  I think not. 

 

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The Continued Spread of the Nanny State

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

-C. S. Lewis  (1898 - 1963)

I begin my post today with the above quote from C. S. Lewis for a couple of reasons.  It is one of my favorite quotes on the subject of tyranny.  Second, as government and the nanny state intrude more and more into our freedom of choice, it is a most appropriate quote for the times that we live in.

I have been thinking about the above quote much more frequently in recent times.  Everyday the government and groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest want to trample upon our freedom of choice and dictate how we should live our lives.  This week I came across two more examples of governmental intrusion into our freedom of choice.  I am sure there were many other examples that I did not run across.

The city of Boston is considering banning the sale of sugar sweetened drinks in public buildings.  Boston has already banned the smoking of cigarettes in bars and the use of trans-fat in restaurants.  This follows on the heels of similar actions by the cities of San Francisco and New York.  A member of the panel suggesting the new rules is quoted in the Boston Globe" as saying that "somebody has to take a stand" to reduce consumption to battle obesity.

The other story that caught my attention was the plan by the city of San Francisco (it figures) that wants to expand a ban on the sale of cigarettes in any store that has a pharmacy.  The original ban was on drug stores like Walgreen's, but the expanded ban would include grocery stores and big box retailers.  Their logic is that a store that sells smoking cessation products and medications should not be allowed to sell tobacco products that are bad for you.

I generally do not drink sugar sweetened sodas, nor do I smoke, so I really have no dog in the fight of these two examples.  However, you seriously have to ask yourself where does it end?  If the city of San Francisco can ban the sale of cigarettes in a store that has a pharmacy, would their next step is to ban any product that they deem to be "bad for you?"   Will full service grocery stores that have a pharmacy no longer be allowed to sell chips, candy, or beer?

Now, I am not against all forms of regulation.  I have no problem with restricting the sale of cigarettes to adults only.  Nor do I have a problem with laws banning smoking in restaurants or other buildings.  The government and other groups should inform the public of potential hazards of a product.  Ultimately, however, the decision of whether or not the good should be consumed should be up to the consumer.  It is sad that the very government that wants the government out of our bedrooms has no problem intruding on our kitchens.

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Fire Safe Cigarettes

Image via Wikipedia

I am sure we have all seen news stories about a house fire that was caused by somebody dozing off with a lit cigarette.  It is a tragedy to see a family lose their home to a fire.  It is even more tragic to see somebody lose their life.

Cigarette manufacturers answered the call of safety advocates and developed "Fire Safe Cigarettes."  Fire Safe Cigarettes, or FSC, will extinguish automatically if the cigarette is left unattended or if the smoker stops puffing.  More and more states are making it a law that only FSC cigarettes can be sold.

As of January 1st, the state of Florida became one of the more recent states to require the sale of FSC cigarettes.  I came across this story about how smokers don't like the new cigarettes.  There was one quote in the article that I found particularly amusing, "Fire retardant? I just want to know what they're really putting in there, and when it'll have an effect on my health."  

 Let me see if I have this straight?  You are smoking a product that has been shown to cause lung and other cancers.  Yet now you are concerned about what might be in a cigarette and how it might impact your health?  Seems illogical to me.  Now, I don't personally smoke cigarettes.  I do, however, know some people who do.  I have had one acquaintance tell me that she doesn't like the FSC cigarettes because she has to puff more often, otherwise they go out on her.  Puffing more?  Now that can't be good.

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Unintended Consequences

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Sometimes I wonder if politicians operate in a vacuum.  They pass legislation with one particular goal in mind with little to no regard of the potential consequences of what that legislation brings.

Let's take, for instance, the idea of sin taxes.  Governments pass taxes on things like alcohol, cigarettes, and now, more and more, candy and sodas.  The goals of such taxes are usually twofold.  One, to try to discourage consumers from using the products that government has determined are harmful.  Second, the government uses these taxes as revenue to fund various projects.  Unfortunately, these taxes are regressive in nature, impacting lower income consumers disproportionately.

Earlier this year, the federal government increased the federal excise tax on tobacco products in order to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  The results of this tax increase are that tobacco sales have declined and there is not enough revenue to cover the cost of program. 

Not only does the federal government pass these taxes, but also the state governments.  Each state has their own tax rates for tobacco.  No surprise, but those states that have tobacco as a major crop, have lower taxes on cigarettes.  In July, the state of Florida increased their tax on cigarettes by $1 per pack.  The results of this tax has led to a decrease in cigarette sales of 28% from last year.  So in one respect, the goal of reducing tobacco consumption would appear to be successful.

Unfortunately, like most legislation, there are consequences that were not considered when the legislation was passed.  First, for those folks that live on state borders where there are lower taxes, some are buying their smokes across state lines. That actually increases the revenues of the neighboring states and decreases the revenue for your own state.

More importantly, is the consequences for those businesses that rely on cigarette sales for their profit.  In the state of Florida, most cigarettes are sold in convenience stores and account for up to 34% of sales.  Those sales help pay the salaries of the store's employees.  When you lose that large a percentage of your sales, you can no longer afford to pay the same salaries you were previously.  Those businesses will either be forced to lay off employees or reduce the number of hours those employees work.  Neither are good for those employees or the economy in general.