Legislation and the Future of Tobacco

The people who hate smoking -- standard voters looking for scapegoats and free money to fund their other delusional programs -- are not smokers, and have no idea that there is a difference between cigarettes, pipes, and cigars. So far, their anti-smoking binge has savaged the number of pipe smokers by eliminating the ability to smoke a pipe and do anything else in public except mow your lawn. As a result, those people were driven to cigarette smoking, and this market now dwarfs pipe smoking. Inverted, as usual.

Smoking has been a far worse whipping-boy in Canada - the US is really late on this train, both in terms of public scrutiny/hatred and taxation.
As BB's thread about B.C. tobacco prices indicated, we've gotten to a point here where things are so expensive that not much product moves, and because of that, retailers don't bring much in. So just as a quick example, there's no distribution in Canada of C/D tobaccos or Pease. We used to have a few tobacconists that actually had stock on things like Dunhill tins, some bulks (Lane, Brigham, some McC). But to find more than .. 20 different tins? at a store? Very rare. And that's ten years ago.
So what you guys are going to see in the USA is a reduced market in all ways - internet sales are going to get more difficult (states want their cut of taxes! and we've seen certain states enforcing this - there are letters going out to people saying "Hey we know you bought 8 pounds of tobacco from retailer X, so pay us the 99.27 you owe in state taxes.") Fewer growers, less top quality leaf. What this means is that you'll still be able to find Captain Black, and it will be 50 dollars a pouch, and that's about it for local supply for many places in the future. There are a few tobacco friendly/neutral states, but they'll soon realize that there's a cash-cow gone untapped.
The "serious" pipe smokers I know here in Canada have been cellaring (hoarding, literally), watching prices go up, watching sales channels dry up. Most of us have a fairly significant stash built up over the years, because every time we went to buy a tin, it was more expensive than last time.
There may be some bounce back, some forgiveness of market and culture, but we exist on the fringes of both profitablity and social acceptance, and that's not a good place to be.

Brightleaf, unless a professional grower, or a purchasing agent, joins in the conversation here, you're not going to get any useful information, just opinions and venting.

Okay, then I'll offer up an opinion. Of course, we're tied to the cigarette tobacco market. Compared to that market we're just the hole in the do-nut. If cigarette manufacturers aren't using much red Virginia in their blends, or are eliminating it, don't expect to find much of it being available.

I was the one that speculated about the relationship between 5100, Red Virginia and cigarettes. As I clearly stated, my statement was pure supposition.
What I do know is that much of the leaf used for pipe tobacco production is not specifically grown for that market. Dark Fired, for example, is mostly grown for chew. When I told a Dark Fired farmer that one of my company's pipe tobacco blends uses Dark Fired, he said "Really?". All of his crop is sold for chew.

After I win the lottery next week , 500 mil, I will buy up all the independent growers and blenders and personally guarantee the production of quality pipe tobacco forever. Sadly, the market is soooo small and shrinking, and not that profitable. No big tobacco company gives a shit about pipe smokers needs or wants. The big guys deal in billions not millions, whether pipe tobacco survives is irrelevant to them.
10 years from now, I’d bet half to three quarters of the available sku’s are gone. Bulk aromatic smokers will always be well supplied, because they dominate the US tobacco market , in terms of demand. Unless I win the lottery and run a not for profit pipe tobacco enterprise, I’d recommend buying enough of what you like now before it is gone.

No farmer grows tobacco exclusively. They plant the crops that will fetch the best price, given the growing conditions. Add to that the external pressures of decreased market demand and increased costs to producers due to FDA regulation pushing down crop prices and farmers will move on to other, more profitable crops.
Homegrowing is the next frontier. Expect to see commercial offerings of casings, toppings, kilns, cutters etc increasing over the next few years.

I was referring to increased costs incurred by tobacco product producers (manufacturers), not growers. They will look to cut costs where they can, and with decreased demand for leaf, it could mean lower crop prices for farmers.

Right, and add to that when the government boys come 'round and say "Say, fella, we hear tobacco's gonna be 10 cents a pound this year, and we have a little program going where if you were to plant soy beans instead, we'd guarantee to buy your whole crop, and we'll pay for the seed." Farmer Brown would have to be a pretty die-hard pipe smoker to not get on a gravy train like that.

we exist on the fringes of both profitablity and social acceptance, and that's not a good place to be.

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Bingo!
The best way for growers to produce tobacco and manufacturers to blend it is for those invested in pipe smoking to work to make that happen. Rather prognosticating about the dire prospects, take to the streets. What, against Big Tobacco and the Feds? Yes. Revolution in the US waits on the middle class being hungry; and we are the middle class of the pipe world. (Nice thoughts, I guess, but they don't amount to much, as although we may be the that middle class, we don't have the numbers to press our point effectively.)
But I suppose this is not already being done as if a grower produces 5000 bales he sells it to the market that will buy all of it, which would be Big Tobacco, which is probably why C&D and McClelland haven't done so already, connecting themselves to growers prepared to sell less of their crop at a price blenders can pay.
I know little about prices as determined by markets, but it would seem to be possible for growers and blenders to meet somewhere in the middle so that both could continue to sustain themselves doing what both want to do, tobacco.
Of course, those with deep cellars can just relax in front of the fire and ignore the changes.
I've read that red, brown and gold VA come from lower and higher areas of a single plant, probably brown lowest and gold highest, much like viso, seco and ligero on a plant used for cigar tobacco. The lower on the plant the longer their maturation.

socially acceptable and legal alternative for the poor saps addicted to nicotine.

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I'm not so sure it's the nicotine that the average cigarette smoker is so strongly addicted to (except for the small percentage who are smoking high quality cigs containing real tobacco).
I suspect the addiction likely involves other chemicals in the products they're ingesting...much like those who are addicted to diet soft drinks and think it’s the caffeine when in reality it’s the aspartame they are addicted to.

The people who hate smoking -- standard voters looking for scapegoats and free money to fund their other delusional programs -- are not smokers, and have no idea that there is a difference between cigarettes, pipes, and cigars. So far, their anti-smoking binge has savaged the number of pipe smokers by eliminating the ability to smoke a pipe and do anything else in public except mow your lawn. As a result, those people were driven to cigarette smoking, and this market now dwarfs pipe smoking. Inverted, as usual.

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+1000 to all of that

All this doom and gloom is the reason why I buy all I can now. Buy, buy, buy!!! I've been actively cellaring tobacco since early 2010 and I'm just going to keep on keeping on.

What I do know is that much of the leaf used for pipe tobacco production is not specifically grown for that market. Dark Fired, for example, is mostly grown for chew.

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That is really interesting, I didn't know that. Is it also used in dip like Copenhagen? I dipped that stuff for a good 25 years and I've always wondered what type of leaf is used.