From: cdhart@laurie.net (Carolyn Hart)
Subject: SNET: [piml] [Fwd: April 7 column - cigarette heist]
Date: 3 Apr 1999 07:05:08 -0500
To: piml@egroups.com
-> SNETNEWS Mailing List
Vin Suprynowicz wrote:
>
> FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED APRIL 7, 1999
> THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
> This is going to be fun
>
> Well, it happened when America's hand-wringing do-gooders tried to
> outlaw the demon rum 80 years ago -- a dozen years of Tommy guns blazing in
> the streets of Kansas City and Chicago until all America cried "enough!"
> and repealed the Volsted Act.
>
> The province of Quebec managed to wave their hands and summon up the same
> phenomenon a few years back when that wayward province tried to raise
> cigarette taxes so high that it became a profitable venture -- though
> hardly one likely to attract the most reputable of entrepreneurs -- to
> smuggle bargeloads of butts across the St. Lawrence from upstate New York.
> For the first time in more than 60 years, machine gun fire again echoed
> across the seaway, as smugglers faced off against both the cops and the
> freelance competition.
>
> The Quebecois quickly caved in, reducing their tobacco levy to something
> more in keeping with those of neighboring jurisdictions.
>
> So, given those experiences, what might the historically minded have
> predicted we would soon see in California, where a combination of tax
> hikes, municipal bans on smoking indoors (or outdoors), and the
> anti-tobacco propagandizing of the Silly State's impressionable young in
> their mandatory government youth camps have now combined to create the
> closest thing to outright tobacco prohibition seen anywhere in recent
> centuries?
>
> "CORONA, Calif. -- An armed gang backed a truck up to a warehouse
> Wednesday and made off with an estimated $1 million worth of cigarettes,
> about 780 years worth of pack-a-day habits," The Associated Press reported
> April 1.
>
> No one was injured in the robbery, which began when four men in hoods
> entered an employee entrance shortly before 5 a.m.
>
> "We tend to believe they're headed for another state or maybe L.A., where
> they'll be sold on the black market," said Sgt. Eddie Garcia, a police
> spokesman.
>
> The thieves bound most of the 15 employees with tape and forced a few
> others to drive forklifts, loading the cargo pallets into a 48-foot
> trailer, Sgt. Garcia said. "It sounds like it was pretty well organized."
>
> "Even legitimate 'bargain' cigarettes run about $3.50 per pack nowadays,"
> The AP noted, "and prices of $4.50 to $5 are common in airports, bars and
> hotels."
>
> With fully two-thirds of those sums going to state and federal taxes, of
> course -- plus rate hikes made necessary by bogus "lawsuits" which are in
> fact thinly disguised government shakedown.
>
> Hey, you like the inner-city subculture -- the general nationwide
> increase in respect for law and order, not to mention the high esteem in
> which our militarized police forces now hold our once-sacred Bill of Rights
> -- engendered by our current, paltry bans on marijuana and cocaine? Tobacco
> users outnumber the often-unfortunate habitues of those substances by
> hundreds-to-one. So go ahead, try to outlaw cigarettes.
>
> You ain't seen nothin' yet.
>
> Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
> Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
> Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6
> UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box
> 4422, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127-4422. The 500-page trade paperback may also be
> ordered via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at
> 1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.
>
> ***
>
> Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
>
> The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
> Hay, 1872
>
> The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
> get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases
> to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and
> soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt
> against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943
>
> * * *
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-> Posted by: cdhart@laurie.net (Carolyn Hart)
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