I am wondering if this will affect the Northerner US Warehouse
ap, yes this will affect all delivered snus. But I know that Northerner ( I have a source) and Swedish Match are moving rapidly towards getting more B&M retailers in the US. They both see the writing on the wall and realize B&M will be the best way to sell snus. The PACT act won’t make UPS/FedEX ing snus and snuff illegal , but it will make it a nightmare , this puts the onus on the seller to make sure all the taxes in each jurisdiction are paid. That would be a nightmare for anyone to figure out and keep up with, especially someone from Europe. If it affects internet orders all the retailers would have to do is have printable order forms on their site. We print them off, mail a check or MO, and they ship it. Welcome to the old days of mail order.
Damn! all govt (including Brazilian) knows how to make the things easier! thanks Bigmick.
Thats an excellent letter Xander. My fear with communicating with politicians - however strong and sensible the argument - is that all you will get back is a justification of something thats already decided. I wouldn’t be surprised if your very elequent letter just gets a standard reply along the lines of ‘this government is committed to reducing tobacco harm’ without even addressing the snuff issue. I am a total cynic when it come to this breed, having been involved with several through my job. Whether they are British or American, or from anywhere else for that matter, they are self-serving crooks. Not that you shouldn’t all contact your senators but I think the comment about big cigars says it all.
Ron Paul is calling this measure, rightfully, authoritarianism. I just wish as an American we’d ditch this “land of the free”, “leader of the free world”, “free country”, untrue propaganda.
Yikes! I didn’t really want to start a political thread. I just wanted to see if we can prevent a mistake from happening that would effectively end our hobby. Snuffster, I happen to be an optimist, so I write letters a lot to my elected officials. I have found that when I write a letter that is my own, I usually get back one that the Senator (or whatever office holder) wrote personally. If I just sign my name to a form letter, I usually get a form letter back. Also it depends on the individual. For instance, my Congressman is pretty worthtless in this regard. He has already made up his mind and tells you so. Sometimes multiple letters will get him to change though. My other Senator is usually very friendly and generally is very helpful if I write to him. He usually knows the issue pretty well and often will send all sorts of literature back to you on it. I don’t always agree with him, and at times he’ll not respond at all. This Senator that I wrote to is an unknown, since he just came in this year, and was appointed due to his predecessor resigning. I wrote to him specifically becuase he is on the judiciary committee. If this comes to a full floor vote (which it probably will not) I will be writing again, this time to both Senators. In general, I don’t hate government. I don’t hate it in theory anyway. Being the optimist that I am, I tend to think it works best when the citizenry is well educated and informed. Apathy and cynicism will turn even the best government bad. Representative deomocracy needs the people to be committed to this. If we let lobbyists do our jobs as citizens, we get laws tailor made to lobbyists needs, not ours. I’ll keep on top of him. If he writes me back I’ll post it here for you to see. If it comes down to it, I can always try and make an appointment at his office and show him my snuff collection. Maybe he’ll get the idea then! 
Getting Back to the Bill s. 1147, Tom of Nicotine Rush was kind enough to do a little research and provide a link on his website to all 19 committee members. Here is the website: Govtrack What I did was compose one letter and use this site to go to each of the 19 members homepage and contact them directly. With the cutting and pasting and navigating it takes a little over an hour, but hopefully the effort will be worth it. If not let’s hope there is some loophole that allows us to still get our snuff.
I have so much US snuffs at present, I don’t care a damn what they will decide on. Plus I have so many true friends all over the States who will help me to get some more when I’m in need that I’m not in the least worried about anything!! There are many ways to kill a senator.
I’m wondering if tobacco retailers in the US would be exempt from this? One might be able to bribe a local tobacconist into making an order for you maybe? I dunno, just grabbing straws here.
Carol, yes we could order it from our local dealer. At least I can. I talked to both of my favorite guys and they are willing to order whatever I want, as long as their distributors carry it. Right now that looks like Wilson’s only. But I have to pay the taxes and a bit of markup to make it worth it to them. I’m Ok with that as it still allows me to get snuff.
My wife works for a mail order outfit. They charge tax for you for whatever state (and municipality if applicable) for each and every customer. Now, that’s sales tax, not excise tax as they don’t deal in tobacco, or anything that carries an excise tax. If we can get the mail BS struck from this bill, a reasonable compromise would have the retailers apply each state’s tax. It would be a huge hassle to be sure, for us but mostly for them. But we’d still get our variety and they could still stay in business. With that kind of language in the bill, you’d see the online cigarette dealers disappear overnight, but the specialty shops would carry on. Another option, more drastic, and also assumming we get the postal nonsense out of the bill, would we would have to get an online vendor for each state. Since I’m probably the only snuff taker in Delaware, I guess I’d have to supply myself :-?
Settled
Xander, I would love to be an optimist but have seen too many officials at first hand to be able to manage it. It may be that you have better representation in the US; I’m not expert enough to be able to comment. My belief is that there not many politicians that don’t want the top job and getting it means selling whatever is left of the soul. Our own dithering Prime Minister has wanted to be PM all his life: that’s a bad, bad motivation in my book; like hiring someone who loves the thought of shooting someone to be a cop. I would just respectfully say to anyone don’t be too impressed by a letter from a politician. If I wrote to the PM I could be completely sure that even a signed response would never have gone anywhere near him. Anyhoo, I’m just talking personal feelings here; no disrespect intended. Pieter; with respect I would say that OT’s about politics are best kept free of comments about killing. I would be happy with anyone stating that politicians are crooks (I have done myself, just a few comments back) but as soon as we start going down the killing them line, even in jest, the debate opens itself up to those less able to debate sensibly. With respect and love dear Pieter.
As this new law won’t effect cigars, will we now see rolled snuff? Can’t be to difficult to compress the snuff into a “tube” and the user will just have to de-compress it!! Anybody wants to start working on a de-compressing machine so long?
The S. 1147 legislation was passed unanimously Friday afternoon in both House and Senate… (sigh).
No it was not. It is at present been refferred to the Senate judiciary commitee. It must past through comittee, then pass the full Senate, then the full house and then be signed by the president. It is a long way to go still. I think you were thinking of the bill that allows the FDA to regulate tobacco.
@Xander: I’ve been informed that we are talking about DIFFERENT bills. THIS is the bill I was referring to, which was NOT the bill of this topic: http://www.theledger.com/article/20090613/ZNYT04/906133018/0/NEWS?Title=Congress-Passes-Measure-on-Tobacco-Regulation So, as Roseanna Roseannadanna would say: Nevermind.
Z-2k, Different bills. This thread is about the PACT act, not the FDA crud. I made the same mistake.
Hope this helps settle the debate:s.1147 status on govtrackThe PACT act has been introduced and referred to committee. It has yet to be reported on by the committee, or voted on by the Senate and house. A link to all the members of this committee are available on the above website. I have contacted everyone of them utilizing their webpages to share my concerns. It’s relatively easy. Compose one letter and save it. Then go to each members website and use their contact form to protest this bullsh*t legislation.
Florida is not represented on the PACT committee, but I sent letters to my State Senators and Representatives anyway requesting they not support it.