Help Fix the Biggest Threat to Pipe Tobacco
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Done. Gonna have to up my cellar stock to cover the risk. Downside.....more available aged baccy.
They say they're coming after pipe tobacco because of RYO, what excuse did they use for RYO?
Was it the damned chew tobacco makers trying to pass there product off as roll your own ?
NO ! They needed no excuse to go after RYO, and they don't need an excuse to attack pipes either, its just that they have such a convenient one to use.
What about the guy thats been rolling his own for 40 years, he has no right to afford his habit ?
I sent my letters (just like the last time this came up) but it is totally divide and conquer here.
Hang together, or hang alone.
Was it the damned chew tobacco makers trying to pass there product off as roll your own ?
NO ! They needed no excuse to go after RYO, and they don't need an excuse to attack pipes either, its just that they have such a convenient one to use.
What about the guy thats been rolling his own for 40 years, he has no right to afford his habit ?
I sent my letters (just like the last time this came up) but it is totally divide and conquer here.
Hang together, or hang alone.
Done, and in keeping with the sentiment of others, I added several paragraphs on my emails and letters that decried the egregious and exorbitant taxes altogether. I closed it with:
"Popular sentiment and voodoo science aside, this is an untoward infraction against common sense as well as individual choice. They are two different products, two different markets, and yet one voting public. Vice taxes become punitive at this level, and will only serve to create (or expand) the black market for such items--be it alcohol, tobacco, sugar, salt, or fruit, as proven historically. I personally will not abide this from my elected representatives, and will rally the voice of others when election time comes around."
"Popular sentiment and voodoo science aside, this is an untoward infraction against common sense as well as individual choice. They are two different products, two different markets, and yet one voting public. Vice taxes become punitive at this level, and will only serve to create (or expand) the black market for such items--be it alcohol, tobacco, sugar, salt, or fruit, as proven historically. I personally will not abide this from my elected representatives, and will rally the voice of others when election time comes around."
I happily obliged, below is a portion of what I sent to my representatives.
Allow me to express my gratitude in the event that through our collective efforts, the TTB establishes a clear delineation between RYO cigarette tobacco, and pipe tobacco. We as pipe smokers are rather fond of the seemingly esoteric past-time of pipe smoking. In differentiating between the two types of tobaccos, we may continue our practice of what many of us consider to be a lost art. The enjoyment of an evening pipe is the highlight of my day; visiting with my local tobacconist and discussing the merits of various blends is a joy I can hardly express. Moreover, may I stress the fact that the only thing cigarette and pipe tobacco have in common is that they both produce smoke; the two renderings of the leaf are otherwise profoundly dissimilar. One more thing: continual tax increases on pipe tobacco will put many, albeit small merchants out of business. It is important to keep in mind that these are the shops that also carry hard-to-find shaving soaps, straight razors and hones, and other particulars that are often hard to come by. I’m sure that I speak for many when I say that the elimination of these merchants would only perpetuate the homogeneous mercantile banality that plagues our shopping options. Please, do your part in keeping a small group of consumers and merchants happy. I appreciate your consideration on this matter.
Allow me to express my gratitude in the event that through our collective efforts, the TTB establishes a clear delineation between RYO cigarette tobacco, and pipe tobacco. We as pipe smokers are rather fond of the seemingly esoteric past-time of pipe smoking. In differentiating between the two types of tobaccos, we may continue our practice of what many of us consider to be a lost art. The enjoyment of an evening pipe is the highlight of my day; visiting with my local tobacconist and discussing the merits of various blends is a joy I can hardly express. Moreover, may I stress the fact that the only thing cigarette and pipe tobacco have in common is that they both produce smoke; the two renderings of the leaf are otherwise profoundly dissimilar. One more thing: continual tax increases on pipe tobacco will put many, albeit small merchants out of business. It is important to keep in mind that these are the shops that also carry hard-to-find shaving soaps, straight razors and hones, and other particulars that are often hard to come by. I’m sure that I speak for many when I say that the elimination of these merchants would only perpetuate the homogeneous mercantile banality that plagues our shopping options. Please, do your part in keeping a small group of consumers and merchants happy. I appreciate your consideration on this matter.
UK citizen unfortunatly, otherwise I'd lend a hand to. The fight against this sort of thing in the UK is mostly non-existant, so I wish you guys the best of luck
Hey Kevin & gang,
Thanks for putting this thing together. I sent the emails out and enclose one FYI below. Please pay particular attention to the "Afterthoughts" section at the bottom. I wanted to make a statement that we are not just representing ourselves, as pipe smokers, but we are literally the upholders of the flame for all those who went before us. We are the bearers of history. And the list is one hell of a list, thanks to Joseph Cruse Johnson, for his website “Famous Pipe Smokers”, from which many of these names were derived.
As members of the pipe smoking community I would really like to urge you to visit and study Joseph's website. Its a life changer for the pipe smoker to know who came before and "what it all means".
His site is: http://josephcrusejohnson.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html.
Here is my letter:
May 19, 2011
Dear Representative Payne:
Dear Senator Lautenberg:
Dear Senator Menendez:
Dear Sirs,
My name is Dr. Eric Boehm, and I am one of your constituents and a Tobacco Pipe Smoker as well. I need your help. I have become quite alarmed that Roll-Your-Own (RYO) cigarette tobacco has been fraudulently labeled as Pipe Tobacco in order to evade taxes and it is making it difficult for me to find legitimate Pipe Tobacco in the market.
After researching the subject, I found that the TTB has been made aware of this situation, and they have a definition that has been proposed by the Pipe Tobacco Council to define the product under the proposal for rule-making Docket TTB-2010-0004.
If you could have someone in your office contact the TTB at 202-453-2000 and ask them to issue the rule that has been proposed, I would be greatly appreciative.
Afterthoughts: Let’s test your IQ on the World History of the 20th Century. Run your eyes down this list of names and see how many you recognize. Collectively, I would argue, these men actually made the 20th Century, both literally and figuratively. To a man, all avid pipe smokes, each and every one. Moreover, many lived well beyond the average lifespan of their day, many passing in their mid- to late-eighties. We current tobacco pipe smokers actually represent the historical legacy of the community of world pipe smokers, a community which, in the not too distant past, encompassed some 40% of the adult males in the United States. Lest it not be forgotten, these anonymous pipe smokers were our grandfathers. Although far fewer in number today, we nevertheless still hold the candle to the memory of these men and the deeds they accomplished, with, of course, pipe in hand:
Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Norman Rockwell, Orson Wells, JRR Tolkein, Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Bing Crosby, President Gerald Ford, Carl Sandburg, Harold Macmillan, Konrad Lorenz, Errol Flynn, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John D. MacDonald, Warner Baxter, Thomas Selfridge, Charles Nelson Reilly, Ossip Zadkine, , Max Frisch, , Paul Casals, Jack Lynch, Patrick Moore, Anthony Hulme, Ronald Colman, Alexander Kent, Jacques Brel, Lino Ventura, Alfred Wainwright, Rudolph Bultmann, Philippe Sollers, Jean Gabin, Leo Malet, G.E. Moore, Gilbert Ryle, Edmund Husserl, J.L. Austin, Lalo Schifrin, James Whitmore, Anthony Quayle, Ralph Richardson, Bernard Grebanier, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanley Holloway, , Carl Jung, Paul Kruger, Curd Jurgens, Gerard Walschap, Trevor Howard, Tony Benn, Rod Hull, Trevor Baylis, Joss Ackland, Frank Muir, Manny Shinwell, Jack Hargreaves, Warren Mitchell, Rupert Davies, Russ Abbot, Van Gordon Sauter, Walter Cronkite, Robert Fulghum, Milorad Pavić, Glenn Ford, Erwin Shrodinger, Moustapha Akkad, Evelyn Waugh, Harold Wilson, Bertrand Russell, Alf Landon, Edgar Buchanan, Dean Jagger, Edward G. Robinson, Rudyard Kipling, Aaron Spelling, P.G. Wodehouse, Allen Dulles, Otto Klemperer, Henry Fonda, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Lemmon, Peter Cushing, Barry Fitzgerald, Hume Cronyn, Graham Chapman, Nigel Bruce, Bennet Cerf, Raymond Chandler, Alexander Graham Bell, Arthur Frank, Richard E. Byrd, Gregory Peck, Albert King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Edward Abbey, Juan Trippe, Frank Sinatra, General George S. Patton, Jacques Derrida, Hurbert Hoover, Sid James, Fred Trueman, Vincent Schiavelli, Eric Morecambe, Stephen Fry, Fred Thompson, Roscoe Dickinson, Guy N. Smith, Gunter Grass, Sean O'Casey, A.A. Milne, Sir Compton Mackenzie, Laurie Lee, W. Somerset Maugham, J.B. Priestly, Andre Dubus, Gordon Parks, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, W.W. Denslow, William Conrad, William Gillette, Edwin Hubble, Rober Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr, Robert Young, Clark Gable, Fred MacMurray, Ralph Bellamy, Cary Grant, David Ogilvy, Sir Winston Churchill, Kind George VI, Arthur Miller, Ernest Hemingway, John Ford, Shelby Foote, Herschel Burke Gilbert, Thomas Johnston Taylor, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Sir John Mills, Owen Barfield, Alan Christopher "Al" Deere, Elliot Harold Paul, Healey Willan, Harold Tucker Webster.
I thank Joseph Cruse Johnson, for his website “Famous Pipe Smokers”, from which many of these names were derived: http://josephcrusejohnson.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html.
Sincerely,
Eric W.A. Boehm, PhD
Assistant Professor, Microbiology
Department of Biological Sciences
Kean University, 1000 Morris Ave.
Union, NJ 07083
Tel. 908-737-3654
Email: eboehmjr@gmail.com
Research Website: http://www.eboehm.com/
Tree of Life Website: http://tolweb.org/Hysteriaceae/29322
Photography Website: http://www.streetphotographyisrael.com/
Thanks for putting this thing together. I sent the emails out and enclose one FYI below. Please pay particular attention to the "Afterthoughts" section at the bottom. I wanted to make a statement that we are not just representing ourselves, as pipe smokers, but we are literally the upholders of the flame for all those who went before us. We are the bearers of history. And the list is one hell of a list, thanks to Joseph Cruse Johnson, for his website “Famous Pipe Smokers”, from which many of these names were derived.
As members of the pipe smoking community I would really like to urge you to visit and study Joseph's website. Its a life changer for the pipe smoker to know who came before and "what it all means".
His site is: http://josephcrusejohnson.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html.
Here is my letter:
May 19, 2011
Dear Representative Payne:
Dear Senator Lautenberg:
Dear Senator Menendez:
Dear Sirs,
My name is Dr. Eric Boehm, and I am one of your constituents and a Tobacco Pipe Smoker as well. I need your help. I have become quite alarmed that Roll-Your-Own (RYO) cigarette tobacco has been fraudulently labeled as Pipe Tobacco in order to evade taxes and it is making it difficult for me to find legitimate Pipe Tobacco in the market.
After researching the subject, I found that the TTB has been made aware of this situation, and they have a definition that has been proposed by the Pipe Tobacco Council to define the product under the proposal for rule-making Docket TTB-2010-0004.
If you could have someone in your office contact the TTB at 202-453-2000 and ask them to issue the rule that has been proposed, I would be greatly appreciative.
Afterthoughts: Let’s test your IQ on the World History of the 20th Century. Run your eyes down this list of names and see how many you recognize. Collectively, I would argue, these men actually made the 20th Century, both literally and figuratively. To a man, all avid pipe smokes, each and every one. Moreover, many lived well beyond the average lifespan of their day, many passing in their mid- to late-eighties. We current tobacco pipe smokers actually represent the historical legacy of the community of world pipe smokers, a community which, in the not too distant past, encompassed some 40% of the adult males in the United States. Lest it not be forgotten, these anonymous pipe smokers were our grandfathers. Although far fewer in number today, we nevertheless still hold the candle to the memory of these men and the deeds they accomplished, with, of course, pipe in hand:
Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Norman Rockwell, Orson Wells, JRR Tolkein, Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Bing Crosby, President Gerald Ford, Carl Sandburg, Harold Macmillan, Konrad Lorenz, Errol Flynn, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John D. MacDonald, Warner Baxter, Thomas Selfridge, Charles Nelson Reilly, Ossip Zadkine, , Max Frisch, , Paul Casals, Jack Lynch, Patrick Moore, Anthony Hulme, Ronald Colman, Alexander Kent, Jacques Brel, Lino Ventura, Alfred Wainwright, Rudolph Bultmann, Philippe Sollers, Jean Gabin, Leo Malet, G.E. Moore, Gilbert Ryle, Edmund Husserl, J.L. Austin, Lalo Schifrin, James Whitmore, Anthony Quayle, Ralph Richardson, Bernard Grebanier, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanley Holloway, , Carl Jung, Paul Kruger, Curd Jurgens, Gerard Walschap, Trevor Howard, Tony Benn, Rod Hull, Trevor Baylis, Joss Ackland, Frank Muir, Manny Shinwell, Jack Hargreaves, Warren Mitchell, Rupert Davies, Russ Abbot, Van Gordon Sauter, Walter Cronkite, Robert Fulghum, Milorad Pavić, Glenn Ford, Erwin Shrodinger, Moustapha Akkad, Evelyn Waugh, Harold Wilson, Bertrand Russell, Alf Landon, Edgar Buchanan, Dean Jagger, Edward G. Robinson, Rudyard Kipling, Aaron Spelling, P.G. Wodehouse, Allen Dulles, Otto Klemperer, Henry Fonda, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Lemmon, Peter Cushing, Barry Fitzgerald, Hume Cronyn, Graham Chapman, Nigel Bruce, Bennet Cerf, Raymond Chandler, Alexander Graham Bell, Arthur Frank, Richard E. Byrd, Gregory Peck, Albert King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Edward Abbey, Juan Trippe, Frank Sinatra, General George S. Patton, Jacques Derrida, Hurbert Hoover, Sid James, Fred Trueman, Vincent Schiavelli, Eric Morecambe, Stephen Fry, Fred Thompson, Roscoe Dickinson, Guy N. Smith, Gunter Grass, Sean O'Casey, A.A. Milne, Sir Compton Mackenzie, Laurie Lee, W. Somerset Maugham, J.B. Priestly, Andre Dubus, Gordon Parks, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges, W.W. Denslow, William Conrad, William Gillette, Edwin Hubble, Rober Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr, Robert Young, Clark Gable, Fred MacMurray, Ralph Bellamy, Cary Grant, David Ogilvy, Sir Winston Churchill, Kind George VI, Arthur Miller, Ernest Hemingway, John Ford, Shelby Foote, Herschel Burke Gilbert, Thomas Johnston Taylor, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Sir John Mills, Owen Barfield, Alan Christopher "Al" Deere, Elliot Harold Paul, Healey Willan, Harold Tucker Webster.
I thank Joseph Cruse Johnson, for his website “Famous Pipe Smokers”, from which many of these names were derived: http://josephcrusejohnson.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html.
Sincerely,
Eric W.A. Boehm, PhD
Assistant Professor, Microbiology
Department of Biological Sciences
Kean University, 1000 Morris Ave.
Union, NJ 07083
Tel. 908-737-3654
Email: eboehmjr@gmail.com
Research Website: http://www.eboehm.com/
Tree of Life Website: http://tolweb.org/Hysteriaceae/29322
Photography Website: http://www.streetphotographyisrael.com/
Add Allen Greenspan to that list. The moneymakers and good ole' boys on the Hill worship his devious objectivist ass. :twisted:
And great link, Kashmir, thanks!
And great link, Kashmir, thanks!
F#%k Alan Greenspan! He's the reason we're all in this mess. Greedy MF! Why, did he smoke a pipe?
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