Little Brown
The Lil Brown Smoke Shack team at the Las Vegas Tobacco Exp Show
launching our new Vision Hunter RYO Pipe Tobacco. We were also the
feature sponsor at the opening night Expo dinner!! Vision Hunter will be
available the end of March, 2010!!
Yesterday at 1:43pm

Bill Blevins
RYO "Pipe Tobacco" is why we who actually use pipe tobacco have H.R.
4439, the Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010 to look forward to. Thanks a
pantload.
59 minutes ago

Little Brown
I hear you Bill, but when the government increases the RYO cigarette
tobacco to around $24 per pound, that forces the industry (as I am sure
you have seen) to adapt and find ways to continue to serve the customers
that want affordable RYO tobacco. We used to have an RYO cigarette
tobacco, but when the taxes went sky high we had to adjust and ... See
Moreunfortunately that ends up effecting you. That is why we need to
continue to speak out against these outrageous taxes and the targeting of
the tobacco industry. If the government hadn't increased the taxes,
business owners across the country wouldn't have switched over to pipe
tobacco. Let's keep up the good fight...the fight for our dwindling
rights!!
30 minutes ago

Bill Blevins
I don't sympathize with cigarette smokers to the point I can say that
it's ok to devise ways to skirt the system at the expense of those who
don't smoke cigarettes.
3 minutes ago

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

It's a divide and concur situation as I see it. If pipe smokers want to stand by themselves we are a very small group with almost no say. The taxation laws really are to be blamed on the politicians not the users.

Amen J.. Don't throw Any Body under the TAX BUS.

For all intents and purposes, there is NO distinction made between pipe tobacco, RYO, snuff, manufactured puffed-stem-and-chip cigarettes, cigars, blunt wrappers, cherry-flavored reconstituted sheet, etc., etc., etc. by the antis - it is ALL the devil's weed. The goal is the prohibition of all tobacco (or, in the case of much mass produced stuff: 'tobacco-like' materials). The modus operandi is that of incrementalism. Divide and conquer is an ancient strategy used effectively for millennia. Sometimes it is easier to 'clique-up' than to see the larger picture - but here we are talking about something much larger than the concerns of a minute minority of botique pipe tobacco enthusiasts.

I think the thoughtful meditation by Greg Pease, "Us vs. Them," is a good read in such instances:

http://glpease.com/BriarAndLeaf/?p=50

The question is......did you vote for the politicians that opened the flood gate of anti-tobacco legislation that has taken the nation by storm in the last 15 months?

We (smokers and tobacco users) can't divide or we're all going to end up with a lot of hurt. It may start with one, but in the end they'll have gotten all of us. I do notice a fair amount of pipe smokers trying to seperate themselves from cigarette smokers, and no one else sees it like that, to them it's a line of tobacco and no tobacco.

Well, cigarette makers are the main culprits of the current state of the prevalent hostile attitude against smoking in general. Their actions provided ample amunition to help advancing the anti-smoking movement. Cigarette companies were never friends of pipe smokers, unhesitantly discontinuing blends that were not profitable (by cigarette sales standards). Now, they found a loophole in the law that they want to exploit, with disregard for any consequences. In other words, we (the pipe smokers) have been adversely affected by their actions and are now being tied down to the railroad tracks once again. I don't see any reason for us to sympathize with them. I just hope pipe tobacco companies have enough backbone to stand up for themselves while they can.

Yeah, no offense, but I tend to agree with the idea that we are all in this together. It's anti's against smokers. The increase in taxes on RYO was unjust. It's not necessarily right that this is going to end up hurting pipe smokers, but this was a foreseeable result of the ludicrous increase on RYO tax. And when they push far enough, they shouldn't be surprised that people will find loopholes or even black or gray markets.

For the record, I've never smoked a cigarette and don't want to.

-Andrew