US Customs and FDA are Attacking Pipe Smokers

[tiberiusjones]

So check this out. I put in a huge order of four pipes with Bollito Pipe Tabaccheria in Torina Italy. The owner, David Bollito is a great guy and answered all my emails quickly. US Customs now is holding my shipment at Erlinger airport at the DHL terminal. They wanted my SSN, the lists of addresses for all the manufacturers of each and every thing i ordered, and then they had to get FDA approval since these are products that touch the human mouth. What a load of BS! This is becoming like Nazi germany against pipe smokers! My local congressmen are going to hear about this from me! ?

 

[npod]

Please search for my recent posts on this topic. I have my last two orders from italy stopped by customs and additional fines/taxes added before release. It appears to be isolated to orders from Italy for some reason. We discuss this further in the prior posts, I just don't have time to search them out right now.

 

[lawdawg]

What a bunch of crap! Serious regulatory overreach. I understand some regulation of tobacco, but regulation of premium artisan pipes? C'mon.

 

[npod]

It's actually not an overreach per se. It is a customs tax issue and they are flagging pipes over a certain dollar amount for customs tax. I have only had the issue with pipes from Italy this year. But it happened twice and I owed an extra $450 total in fees/tax. I thought it was a FedEx issue, but it appears that is not the case.

And I have had many orders from Denmark arrive with no issue whatsoever.

I recommend contacting the company once you place the order and recommend that they split the shipment labels to multiple packages and all <$350 USD if possible. That appears to be a good solution if the company is willing to do this for you.

 

[lawdawg]

It's actually not an overreach per se. It is a customs tax issue and they are flagging pipes over a certain dollar amount for customs tax. I have only had the issue with pipes from Italy this year. But it happened twice and I owed an extra $450 total in fees/tax. I thought it was a FedEx issue, but it appears that is not the case.

And I have had many orders from Denmark arrive with no issue whatsoever.

I recommend contacting the company once you place the order and recommend that they split the shipment labels to multiple packages and all <$350 USD if possible. That appears to be a good solution if the company is willing to do this for you.

So it's a tax issue. Fair enough, and pretty reasonable. I just recoil by instinct anytime I hear about the government putting a damper on our pipes and tobacco. Overreach, I say!

 

[mikethompson]

Neal I'm glad you posted, this reminds me of your situation not too long ago.

I'm not sure what they would need your SSN number for.

 

[lawdawg]

I will add that the FDA approval issue is pretty absurd. "While our FDA-approved opioid medications are leading to an unprecedented level of addition and deaths by overdose, we do need to ensure that your acrylic or vulcanite pipe stems are reasonably safe for oral contact"

 

[craiginthecorn]

This is becoming like Nazi germany against pipe smokers! My local congressmen are going to hear about this from me!

Let’s hope you don’t live in the northeast or on the west coast. If so, they’ll consider that complaint to be a trophy.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Nasty business, that. But let's leave Nazis out, please.

 

[seanv]

Seems they are just trying to extract every single dollar of tax revenue available. Import fees when imposed, can be brutal

 

[warren]

"This is becoming like Nazi germany (sic)"

Nazi Germany? Really?

Pay what you owe and move on.

 

[olkofri]

The Nazi War on Cancer, by Robert N. Proctor. (Note that Proctor is an antismoker, so please don't knock this one off as pro-smoking 'propaganda'.)

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

The import duty on pipes used to be fairly low, like less than 5%. I have had two shipments from DHL out of at least 10 over the last three years where, a few days after delivery, a customs duty charge passed on from them appeared when I checked my on line credit card statement, but it was minimal, no more than 5 or 6 bucks. Federal Express has a subsidiary Customs brokerage company. I checked the itemized statement that a friend got after getting hammered by them on a pipe he got from a dealer in Rome two years back, and all but a trivial amount of the bill was for their “services. “. Yes, someone was serviced, in the animal husbandry sense. I have heard that UPS has a similar subsidiary, but have no first hand knowledge. And Davide Bollito is a prince.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

Knock on wood, I've had 4 Rubio pipes (3 shipments) pass through in the past 6 weeks with no issues.

 

[warren]

olkofri: I doubt his understanding of Nazis would cover their horrific medical experiments. I suspect his understanding of "Nazi" is gleaned from TV pundits. Just a misguided attempt at hyperbole I suppose.

 

[olkofri]

Warren: doubtful; the book is very well researched, and it was published way before the word 'nazi' was so liberally bandied about on the Internet and social-mediasphere and pinned on anyone who disagrees with liberal thinking. Sadly, this behaviour insofar as it makes people roll their eyes up and dismiss the epithet as childish name-calling and online tantrums actually helps the nazis as hides in the realm of tantrums and urban legends many of the bad things they did.

The nazis were actually the ones who coined the term 'passive smoking' (Passivrauchen) –which was then changed to 'second-hand smoke' in America– in their jihad against tobacco. I've personally seen evidence of how they glorified Hitler's 'healthy' non-smoking stance and habits: there is this sign on display in the Deutsches Historische Museum:

 

[jaytex1969]

before the word 'nazi' was so liberally bandied about on the Internet and social-mediasphere and pinned on anyone who disagrees with liberal fundamentalist thinking.

Fixed that for you. Please don't muck up the new house with partisan crap.

 

[alaskanpiper]

 

[seanv]

In before the lock

 

[Chasing Embers]

Been pushing through phone issues to hang around but it's looking a bit like Facetwittergram around here complete with the creepy, stalkeresque follow option.

IBTL!