Since there seem to be comments and ideas sprinkled throughout various threads on this subject, I thought I’d start a new one devoted with practical ideas for dealing with or circumventing this unjust law. One idea I had would be for individuals to register as tobacco retailers in their state. In Texas it costs $150 per two years, I believe, and one can run one’s business literally out of a car. The problem is that it would then be illegal to buy from wholesalers who are not licensed in the State of Texas. But there is at least one snuff shop in Austin which has a website that seems to be able to get a decent supply. [url]http://www.snuffshop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc[/url] I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but is sounds promising to me. I would just suggest that this thread be devoted to problems and solutions related to the legal environment of commerce in snuff under The Act, as opposed to DIY strategies which has a seperate thread. Post whatever you want, however. Bear in mind that AIG nearly brought down the entire financial system by coming up with an innovative way to sell “insurance” against default on various types of securities while circumventing state insurance regulators. They started up a “Financial Products Division” and started selling Credit Default Swaps, which are a type of derivative security that is almost identical to a “put” option, which is what all insurance policies are at heart. There is a huge literature in financial theory on what is known as “circumventive innovation” which means financial innovation that has no other purpose than to enable financial institutions to skirt regulatory authority when making money hand over fist. Why not start our own literature of circumventive innovation when it comes to tobacco products? Circumvention doesn’t involve breaking the law, it involves knowing the law well enought to comply with it to the letter, but still doing what the regulation seeks to forbid.

Like everyone, I can only wait and see how this all plays out. PACT as written seems unenforceable, and whichever bureaucracy is conjured up to oversee this travesty is going to be about as efficient as you’d expect it to be, i.e. not very. I’d expect that they’ll immediately “intercept” a massive “illicit” cigarette shipment (think Fat Tony’s Laramie heist in that Simpsons episode), trot it out for the news cameras and pat themselves on the back, congratulating themselves for having saved “the children” from a lifetime of emphysema and questionable morality. One possible advantage here is that nasal snuff isn’t even going to be on their radar. Thankfully, “the children” and their “terrorist” buddies will still be able to buy and receive “cigars.” Verstehen sie, Kinder? Have a cigar, you’re gonna go far. Fly high… CIGS and SNUFF are “bad.” CIGARS = good! EVERYTHING IS BAD (EXCEPT CIGARS). Hell, I’m so grateful to our concerned and caring Congressmen/women and Senators for passing the PACT Act, I’m going to send each and every one of them a box of cigars. Thanks to them, I can. Er, what was the question? Oh, yeah. I do have enough Wilsons IHT No. 22 to last me for a few years, and am also well stocked on what I consider to be essential snuffs (various SPs, McChrystal’s Hopfen Schnupf, Hedges, etc.). I do have a large snuff collection that can last for some time to come. Still, I too have thought about registering as a tobacco retailer. I suppose I could get rich selling cigars to kids over the internet. What about becoming a tobacco wholesaler? I couldn’t find much information on that. Now, a truly ambitious and enterprising person could start a new nationwide private carrier that specializes in tobacco shipments. Set it up as a franchise, using contract labor in different cities. Perhaps partner with various Indian tribes. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Look to the Indians to come up with a solution with the cigarettes and RYO. Maybe we can get them to piggy back snuff onto their solution.

I’m not worried about it. Not because I won’t miss ordering snuff online, but because worrying about it does nothing. I’ll just sit back and see what happens.

wow, so maybe some of my thinking that was also in this same direction (in another thread) maybe wasn’t so far off after all. Here I will try to make a summary of some various ideas so far: 1. Contact our senators (or is it the congressmen we need now? anybody know?) 2. Stock up (a LOT – dry fine plain snuffs would probably store best ) 3. Become stores (registered retailers or wholesalers) ourselves. 3a. would be really nice if there was one actual online store per state – (this would require at least 50 sniffers, one per state, who’d be willing to do this.) 4. go on a mad dash with renewed vigor to really find local physical retail stores (not stated but still a good idea) 4a. (new idea) if you get friendly with a physical store proprietor see if you can get them maybe to special order (or better yet) just start carrying regularly what you need – 4b.at least start asking questions about how it all works, find out why/how the physical store is able to safely sell snuff so we can try to emulate that one way or another online or off for ourselves. this is an incomplete post, cut off and sent as is (because of one of those real life catastrophes I mentioned before) but I’ve clicked save as is and will come back and edit it again later as needed.

@Nachman Great insight. As always, those who have the most to gain, or the most to lose from something, usually have the greatest incentive to do something about it. From what I understand, the Senecas are still furiously spending money on lobbying the process, even though it seems like a done deal to me. I wish them and all Native Americans every success in their battle against Corporate America and it’s lackey Police State, and not just for personal reasons. [url]http://www.wkbw.com/home/related/87493797.html[/url] @ ctokes4 It sounds like you’re afflicted with a severe case of normal mental health. As for myself, I would like to try to paticipate in helping to find a solution, partly because I blame my own passivity in the face of an overwhelming and shockingly succesful attack against the rights of tobacco users for what has to have been the worst year of my life in the area tobacco rights, beginning with the excise tax increase of April, 2009. I’m not going to be passive anymore. I also calculate that the more I worry about something, the less likely it is that it will happen, although I’m not sure that it’s the worrying that CAUSES the worried about event not to happen. Ad hoc, ergo prompter hoc is my favorite logical fallacy.

I have wrote letters. It did nothing. The Senator that replied to my letter said that he was worried about this bill due to the restrictions on Native Americans. Yet, he did nothing to raise his concern in the senate. That is why I do not worry. I know there is nothing I can do about it. Stocking up is an okay idea, as long as you have the space and $$ to do so. Buying a tobacco license only to buy snuff seems a bit extreme. If it comes down to it, I think that simply contacting a local shop would be the best idea. Writing letters is futile, as interns read them and spew out cookie-cutter responses. Even showing up on the steps of the Capital with placards is pointless. So, I wait. And in the meantime I will order a ton of seeds so that one day I can make my own snuff, tax free. I really wish this were only about taxes.

@ cstokes I hear what you’re saying, but it makes you wonder how any change for the good ever happens anywhere if people are completely powerless to make it happen? But this is not the time nor place for political debate. I think it IS all about taxes for those in politics, while their “useful idiots” in the International Tobacco Control Community provide a smokescreen to make it appear as if they’re concerned about something more noble. Pay The Man off, and The Man will let you be.

Im surprised Tom hasn’t said anything regarding this whole ordeal. I’m not trying to be disrespectful and I imagine he is doing everything in his power to get these issues resolved. But I, like many, would like some reassurance from a US seller like himself.

I say good man Roderick. Especialy since your saying that this maybe the best thing to happen to ISTA ever. First step Agent for internet snuff site, then taking over. Or something like that.

giaach, I believe Tom’s internet is currently down.

The devil went down to Florida, he was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to make a deal.

Weird thought: what does this mean for people who want to trade from state to state, or gifts? I’m going to ‘pick on’ LHB because I suppose he’s in a different state than me and I need somebody as an example to ask this question: Lets say LHB and I live in two different states and neither of us are retailers/wholesaloers, just regular people, and we decide to make a snuff trade? are we also not allowed to to use the postal service for this? Are we allowed to trade to each other at all or do we have to give eachother our IDs and all that first? if we’re not selling we at least don’t have to pay taxes to eachother just for crossing the state lines to eachother, or do we? (because buying cigarettes in one state and taking them to another is considered against the law, I have to ask) If I wanted to or he wanted to me, are we not allowed to make gifts to one another and get them mailed or delivered? What if one of us IS a retailer or a wholesaler and we wanted to just do a people trade or gift? what if both of us are retailers or wholesalers and we wanted to?

Private citizens are allowed to pass tobacco through the mail under the bill. It restricts it to 10 mailings per month, how they will enforce that is beyond me.

I would not expect Tom or Dave to have much to say in a public forum like this, under the advice of their attornies. I’ve dealt with few people who care more about their customers, but their first priority has to be protecting their property and their livelihoods. I really admire Roderick for taking the initiative to “step up” on this, given how stupid my own ideas seem, but Roderick is located in the UK, and US police powers don’t extend that far. I’ve said in another public forum that using Toque products always make me feel like I’m doing something to make the world a better place. I’d like to double-down on that sentiment. Roderick’s idea sounds like an excellent one to me, although I still have my doubts about joining an organization that would want me for a member. As kjoerup and cstokes4 suggest, many parts of the bill are unenforcable, and I suspect who they’re really going after is the multi billion dollar trade in cigarettes that slip under the radar of state tax collectors. Still, if I90 goes through the Seneca Reservation, they ought to set up a tollbooth and charge $50 per vehicle, unless the occupants can demonstrate that they’re tobacco users.

So… what if somebody has a website and they take donations to keep their website going and for a certain level of donation the donator can pick a gift from various choices of snuff as their gift (think: PBS telethons)?

$50? Nah, they don’t have to pay a toll, they just have to buy a pack of cigarettes, which are $250 by the way.

GovTrackIf you click on the link and read the bill on govtrak, you can go to the left hand sidebar and have it compare the original bill with the ammended bill that the Senate passed. A paragraph of section 4 and a paragraph of section 7 were eliminated. I need to read it again to be sure, but the whole bit about establishing an agency for enforcement seems to have been nixed. It seems they knew the bill was largely toothless, and that’s why there was no objections in the Senate.

So… if they can’t really enforce it…

I have to read that more (what Xander posted) right now the terrorist thing completely baffles me Roderick I guess you just aren’t too familiar with the United States government or the things that American people will not only put up with but will even actually go for… I have four words that might jog your memory as to just how incredibly stupid we can really be: “Bush re-elected in 2004”

I posted this here back in December on this thread. You want to follow the letter of the law? Let’s adhere to the PACT bill’s laughably generous definition of “cigar.” Wrap the snuff in a cigar leaf or “in any substance containing tobacco” and you’ve got a cigar. It’s as simple as that, law abiders. [quote] PACT: ‘(B) EXCEPTION- The term ‘cigarette’ does not include a cigar (as defined in section 5702 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986). Here is that definition: (a) Cigar ‘‘Cigar’’ means any roll of tobacco wrapped in leaf tobacco or in any substance containing tobacco (other than any roll of tobacco which is a cigarette within the meaning of subsection meaning of subsection (b)(2)). http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Internal\\_Revenue\\_Code:Sec.\\_5702.\\_Definitions Once again, wrap powdered tobacco “in leaf tobacco or in any substance containing tobacco” and you are selling and shipping a “cigar”. It is not a “cigarette”; it is not not “snuff” — it is a “cigar.” That is according to the letter of the law.[/quote]

well… that might work for Roderick’s products (he’s in charge of his own packaging and has the N Rustica and as a perk we could always grind up the tobacco ‘container’ for still more snuff) but when you’re talking about retailers for already known snuffs that retailers don’t have control over the packaging (and that’s nearly everything else, Rooster to WoS etc) that might not be so easy unless you’re asking MrSnuff to remove each of them from their containers and repackage them and then he’s probably asking for trouble from the manufacturers otherwise, and much as I would love to see MrSnuff carry more grindables (like an N Rustica of his own for example) unfortunately, I don’t think wrapping a big leaf around a can of rooster is really gonna cut it

I did not write that one should wrap a leaf around a can of Rooster. I wrote that ground tobacco rolled into a cigar leaf wrapper or in “any substance containing tobacco” (think “little cigars”) is by (the PACT Act’s) definition, a “cigar.”

well I guess I still don’t understand. I don’t know much about cigars, haven’t even seen that many of them close up but I figure they’re not powder to begin with and its going to be a real trick to get snuff to stay in a cigar… that is what you are talking about right? if not, can you give some examples of how you have in mind this could be done? and how do we solve the problem of so many snuffs by so many manufacturers… if you didn’t mean wrapping a leaf around a can of rooster, what do you mean (for all the OTHER snuffs like this)? I’m not trying to pick on you, in fact its the other, I think there is a potential for an idea here (and it IS an idea which is better than no ideas, and all ideas should be discussed and considered and given some weight because we’re looking at a few major problems and thinking and finding ways to deal with itreally might be all we’ve got, otherwise we just sit and get screwed and know we never even tried) so,how?

it doens’t make any specifications for what isn’t in a cigar. for example a tin of snuff.

Cigars are a giant tobacco leaf with a ‘filler’ made out of different blends of tobacco, and sometimes flavourings and spices or what have you, and sometimes mixed with a ‘binder’ that keeps it all compact together so it doesn’t come tumbling out when you cut the smoking end of the cigar. The leaf is either hand or machine rolled so that it’s closed on both sides, which is why you have to cut one end or punch a hole in it to have a place to smoke it from. Here is a good picture of a bundle of Cigars. So, really, all you would have to do is stuff your snuff into a leaf wrapper, and then close both ends. Voilla, a snuff cigar that won’t dump snuff anywhere. It could also probably come with a complementary empty tin, or smashbox, or whatever so when you cut the cigar and dump out the snuff you have something to put it in so that it doesn’t dry out. Just a thought.

well I don’t know, Bob, is a tin of snuff “any roll of tobacco”? about now I am getting a Cheech & Chong image at the notion of, at the request of some pesky goverment official having someone (probably a deer-in-headlights retailer like MrSnuff) in their captive audience ordering a demonstration of actually smoking that ‘cigar’…

(sigh) We are only concerned with the definitions and language as specified by the PACT act. Leave the discussion of leaf cut, binders, hand-or-machine made, cutting techniques and fillers to cigar enthusiasts. It matters not one whit with regard to the topic at hand. Once again, here is what the PACT bill states: [quote]‘(B) EXCEPTION- The term ‘cigarette’ does not include a cigar (as defined in section 5702 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986).[/quote] And here is the definition of “cigar” as defined in section 5702 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986: [quote]b Cigar ‘‘Cigar’’ means any roll of tobacco wrapped in leaf tobacco or in any substance containing tobacco (other than any roll of tobacco which is a cigarette within the meaning of subsection meaning of subsection (b)(2)).[/b] [url]http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Internal\\_Revenue\\_Code:Sec.\\_5702.\\_Definitions[/url][/quote] This is why those filtered “little cigars” that look, taste and smoke suspiciously like a cigarette are legally classified as cigars and not as cigarettes. They consist of a roll of tobacco wrapped in a substance containing tobacco leaf. It doesn’t matter that its wrapper is mainly low-grade paper with a wee bit of reconstituted tobacco added to the pulp. It meets the federally defined criterion of a “cigar,” and that is why it can be sold and taxed as such. And that is why a pack of 20 of the things are so damn cheap: because they are taxed as cigars and not at the exorbitant cigarette tax rate. My subjective aesthetic opinion would be that Wilsons of Sharrow Brunswick packed into a King Edward wrapper would undoubtedly make for an awful smoking experience, but it’s still a cigar, according to the federal guidelines. But the federal guidelines say noting about smoking your cigars. Smoke ten simultaneously or shove 16 of them up your ass. Whatever. The IRS definition does not dictate how you are to consume them. Until it does, that is up to you. Hell, I think a King Edward is an awful cigar, but it doesn’t matter what I think. According to Section 5702 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, a King Edward is a cigar, and that is all that matters here.

@kjoerup I wasn’t discussing any of that. I was simply telling her why it would be feasable to pack a wrapper with snuff and call it a cigar without it falling apart. Sorry for dragging the discussion off topic.

Well, you can hire a chimpanzee to wrap Rooster badly in tobacco substance-fortified toilet paper and the final, crappy product will meet the IRS definition of “cigar.” Nothing in the definition states that a cigar has to be a “well made” cigar. Just saying.

okay, yes, I admit my mind wandered there a bit with the cheech and chong up in smoke thing (sorrysorry!) maybe we should run this by the US resellers here I am also wondering just what percentage of snuff sales are actually through the internet as opposed to physical stores, if its a big enough portion of sales maybe the manufacturers would be interested in changing their packages (afterall, look at the conwood ones that already come in cardboard that is rolled (look inside there you can see it just like the inside of a paper towel or toilet paper roll) how hard would it be to add a percent of tobacco to that paper, or maybe even would the paper labeling at least on american scotches do? maybe somebody should be talking to the manufacturers?

There is nothing to “run by” the snuff vendors. They and their consulting attorneys know best how to run their business. I think all of this is moot, and the snuff vendors do not need to waste their time on cigar semantics. The Senate version of PACT is essentially toothless and if that is the version that is signed into law (if indeed PACT is signed into law at all), the internet resellers have nothing to worry about. PACT was designed to put a damper on Indian tribe cigarette sales, and was asking that the federal government step in and pay for that. The Senate revision wisely threw it back to the states. The revised PACT is now going to have to be negotiated in the House. The difference between the House and Senate versions is quite substantial, and PACT may very well simply die in Committee. We shall see. Regardless, the Senate revision to PACT made one thing abundantly clear: the federal government will not get the US district courts or the Department of Justice involved in PACT enforcement, nor will they allocate money for enforcement agencies. Money talks – and this is the crux of the matter. If nothing else, a lot of people following the PACT saga are receiving a much needed civics lesson. If the snus forum is any indication, it is extraordinary to learn how many American adults have such a vague or nonexistent grasp on how law is made in the USA.

^^_it is extraordinary to learn how many American adults have such a vague or nonexistent grasp on how law is made in the USA._My understanding is that it is made exactly the same way as sausages.

you mean it’s ground up and cased in an intestine. Yup that would be a pretty accurate picture.

and its not pretty what goes into it.

And you should definatly wash your hands when you’re done with it too.

More like its chewed up,passed through an intestine and the end result is dumped upon the public. Because its for our own good whether we know it or not. And we should all be thankful we have these highly intelligent (well compared to us of course) elected officials looking out for our best interests!

“Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason.”— Mark Twain