Cigar Rights Contest

Not a lot here in the UK………..
But as you’ve assumed your excellent site is only used by Americans you wouldnt know that.
We are already social outcasts and less than 1% of Brits smoke cigars so we can annoy more of the retards whilst enjoying the leaf ourselves.

Keep up the good work,

ROY.R
Essex, UK

Personally, I don’t think any anti cigar or even anti smoking campaigns originating from the White House, mainly because Obama is a smoker. However, I do expect more sin taxes across the board, as that is the one concept both parties agree on. That being said, I don’t know whether activism for cigar rights is going to do anything unless the cigar companies pony up the dough necessary to play in Washington these days. I know on a “leafroots” level its going to be tough to motivate folks to march, picket or the like when they could be inside their local cigar store still exercising their cigar rights with a neat bourbon or single malt scotch.

I do not expect any new anti-smoking initiatives to come from the White House. The new administration seems to have its hands full with two wars, the economic disaster, the deficit disaster, the health care disaster, not to mention the utter collapse of the social contract. It seems to me that there are really critical matters that require serious attention without spending time and energy on suppressing a few cigar smokers.
At least I hope so.

I think the biggest threat is the SCHIP funding. BHO will need to walk a fine line about tax increases and expecting full funding from another “sin” tax.
With his global outlook I think we need to make it clear to him and our Congressman that the lively hood of 400k plus workers in this industry that reside in Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, etc will be drastically affected. Then there is the loss of business and more tax revenue within our borders that will likely be the outcome. With many states now running w/a deficit due to the economy where spending from a cup of coffee to new cars has hit bottom we need to call our Governors office and let them help us.
Bottom line I do not think we will escape an increase. .40 cent per stick tax is in the works I heard. Oddly enough CI magazine and the Big Smoke made hardly a whisper. Have they rolled over?
Not much to find about SCHIP over at CRA also.

I don’t think anything will come out of the White House. I think locally and on the state levels the anti-smoking groups will continue to push their agenda. I am hoping that the pro-rights groups (from both the right and left) will fight back and let good compromises prevail. The rights of business owners should be taken into account as well as the ideals of certain groups. Hopefully we can have a few years, at least, of common sense and balance.

Once Obama becomes president, he will cave in to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank and the other Socialists in Congress to impose the SCHP tax on cigars. It may not be 6000% as originally requested but it will be substantial, leading many to not be able to afford good cigars and once more infringing on our right to…..”the pursuit of happiness….” as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The fact Obama smokes means nothing. Politicians get away with murder, literally, for crying out loud.

I see the SCHIP tobacco tax possibly going through because you’ll have Pelosi and all the others like her in congress pushing for it and I don’t see Obama vehemently opposing it. He’ll just sign it. Will it have an impact on cigar sales? I think yes. The taxes may not be as high as first suggested but I think they could be significant enough to have a serious impact on the industry. People will most likely not pay let’s say $2, $3 or $4 more per cigar. If the price of cigars goes high enough where the majority of smokers can’t afford them your tax base goes away and you have accomplished nothing.

If they seriously want the money funded via a “sin tax” they should look at a broader tax base and in a way it wouldn’t jeopardize the industry. If the government were to look at liquor which has a vastly larger consumer base and add just 5 cents tax to each drink you ordered while at a bar or dinning out, most people would pay the extra 5 cents per drink and go on with their evening because it not a severe impact on the individual level. With the larger consumer base these tax revenues would dramatically outpace a tax on cigars. I enjoy going out for drinks and would keep doing so if the price went up a nickel per drink but buying cigars at a drastically increased price would be of major concern.

The tax is not meant to be a viable source of income for the government. It is meant to stop us from smoking.

Buttcrack is a smoker, and a Liberal. The only thing that will change, as far as the federal govt. is, maybe an added tax on locations that allow smoking. This of course will not apply to the white house.

I think that part of the way Obama will pay for a new health care bill will be to raise taxes on tobacco products, including cigars. I don’t think any smoking bans or anti-smoking policies will come from Obama directly. However, I do think we will continue to see more and more smoking bans. They just passed a new smoking ban in my home town.

Raising taxes is a given with the Dems in control! SCHIP is the only way they can pay for the health care they want, and if you think they will tax cigars so high they will lose their tax base, figure the amount of tax on cigarettes and alcohol now.

Clearly, the opinions here lean toward ban increases and taxes. The fringe idiots notwithstanding, I would agree that President-elect Obama has a lot more important issues to deal with. I doubt that any federal level changes will be instituted but any pressure toward taxes and bans will be at the State or municiple level. If we can influence the insurance Nazis and the religious-right that seem willing to anything to enforce their thin view of what is appropriate for the rest of us there may be hope.

with the financial crisis beating us to a pulp, the probability of new tax’s has to taken highly likely ! but , i don’t think there would be any major tax increase on cigar’s.. it would most likely come from the local level , which in turn will only hurt the b&m’s in your’s and my town’s.. people will stop shopping at their local shop’s to avoid these tax increases, which will lead to cigar shop closures. they will start frequenting the online store’s to avoid local and state tax’s. thus the state’s that have tax increases will actually lose momey because of the lose of revenue. kind of a catch 22 huh !

During President Obama’s term more and more local governments at the state level will continue tightening the reigns on where people can smoke and unfortunately there will be hikes in sales taxes, this is inevitable. I am not sure whether the cigar industry has lobbyists in Washington and at the epicenter of anti-cigar hot spots (NY, CA, MA, etc), but there needs to be. Many in the government are “influenced” by these lobbyists and I believe this is necessary for all who want to preserve their freedom to smoke cigars. I am aware of Cigar Rights of America, but don’t know whether they actually employ full time lobbyists in D.C.

Imagine having fiscally responsible people controlling the budget at the national, state, and municipal levels! Wouldn’t that be something?!? Instead, like many people in America, the government spends what it has, continues to spend what it doesn’t have, and then scrambles to figure out how to minimize the effects of its reckless spending habits…unfortunately what this means for all of us is higher taxes on cigars, “non-diet” products, ipod music downloads, and every other kind of enjoyment that people like. Crazyness….

I believe SCHIP will pass, but with a much lower cigar tax then originally proposed.

In the name of liberal freedom we will be saved from our own obvious stupidity and stopped from smoking anything but dope almost anywhere including our own homes.
Yet another step toward our new obamanation.

During Obama’s new term, I don’t think there will be an outright ban, but I do think tobacco taxes will be raise by a LARGE margin. They won’t ban something they can tax heavily and make money off of it. I do think you will see more city wide bans and even some state wide bans of smoking in public areas.

I do not feel that our rights will be taken and bans will further be issued. The president, state, and local agencies are counting on us to keep money flowing into the economy. They might not allow cigar smoking at little league baseball games, inside stores, malls, or clubs…but they want us to smoke these stogies just as much as they always have. I feel we are safe currently from having to think about letting cigars go, this is not on the current presidents agenda at all. He has much more to worry about.