When Legal Isn’t Legal and Unlawful Is Quite Alright

Rocky Mountain High . . .not just for singing anymore. This week Denver voters voiced their approval to christen Denver as the first major city to legalize small/personal amounts of marijuana (up to an ounce), without a penalty . You remember marijuana right – it’s an illegal plant, whose leafs are illegally grown, illegally picked, illegally dried, illegally rolled into smoking papers and illegally smoked by happy consumers (yes, despite Denver’s most fervent wishes, marijuana is presently a controlled substance — illegal in all 50 states and under federal law).

Despite of, or perhaps because of the obvious debate over whether a local Denver-ite (if that’s the correct term) should be allowed to conclude his or her own last dance with Mary-Jane on a given night, the truly necessary debate has not been raised anywhere yet … other than here.

Well, it may not be a debate as it is so much of a riddle, that riddle being: how is it possible that a local government could arbitrarily deem an illegal controlled substance such as pot “legal”, while across this country, in state and local governments from New York to Washington State, our elected officials have taken quiet but consistent steps to turn another leafy substance, whose leaves are legally grown, legally picked, legally dried, legally rolled into smoking papers and legally smoked by happy consumers in all 50 states – into a de-facto illegal product?

The answer as always is very simple … follow the $ $ $. Don’t believe me…? Think I’m going overboard as an outraged smoker who can’t smoke inside the American Airlines Center or at my seat in most major league ballparks? Think again – I don’t smoke and unfortunately, I’m not exaggerating.

Unable to crush the litigation against the Big Tobacco/State Government Master Settlement Agreement (“MSA”) in his New York courts, Mr. Spitzer has sought to defend the unconstitutional compact with 46 state governments by striking up an “agreement” (read coercing and intimidating) UPS into ceasing to deliver any and all cigarettes to individuals throughout the US under the guise of fighting “under-taxation” of cigarettes , and the age-old excuse of combating underage smoking. And just who ships their cigarettes through the mail… let me give you a hint – it’s not Marlboro or Winston. Nope, it’s the little guys, the Non-Participating Members to the MSA (“NPMs”), independent cigarette manufacturers and their wholesale and retail distributors who have, through their successful inter-state shipping of their products, have legitimately gained market share against Big Tobacco since 2002, and have as of yet refused to relinquish their free market birth right to the Unconstitutional Goliath (MSA) which has spawned the Ultimate Stealth Cartel partnership between Big Tobacco and State and Local Governments.

With the accession to Mr. Spitzer’s bullying tactics by UPS, a Citizen Consumer, the independent NPMs and their independent wholesaler’s and retailers are left with only Federal Express and the U.S. Postal Service as their remaining lifelines to deliver the their legal goods. As you might expect – Mr. Spitzer is already “negotiating” with both of these entities in order to persuade both FedEx and the USPS, that resistance against the Stealth Cartel Cabal juggernaut is futile .

The goal in the attempt by Spitzer on behalf of his Comrades in Collusion to intimidate UPS and other delivery companies is to establish a de-facto criminalization of something which is wholly legal, the sale of legal cigarettes through the mail.

But Mr. Spitzer hasn’t limited his end-around play on the Constitution on behalf of the MSA to merely attacking the legal delivery systems which have existed for the independent NPM wholesaler/retailer and Citizen Consumer. StatesOnTheTake.com has learned that Mr. Spitzer has also launched a clandestine effort to direct his wrath towards the parties who make it possible for Citizen Consumers to purchase their desired cigarettes over the internet – the credit card companies.

StatesOnTheTakel.com has learned that the same tactics of coercion and intimidation which were brought to bear against UPS for merely serving their clientele, has also been brought to bear against large credit card companies . As with UPS, these credit card companies saw fit to surrender to the unfounded and unsupportable demands of Mr. Spitzer and Comrades in Collusion and have stopped or will in the very near future, stop facilitating credit card transactions with regards only to the legal purchase of cigarettes via the internet.

These efforts of intimidation by Spitzer on behalf of The Stealth Cartel which forms the MSA, are in and of themselves a metaphor for the underlying objective of the MSA partnership. The MSA is based upon the premise that together with their partners –State Governments (governors and AGs) taking the necessary actions (which Big Tobacco could never dream of taking itself due to anti-trust laws), the balance of the free market is to be destroyed by precluding each and every legitimate avenue which presently exists for the independent NPM/wholesaler/retailer and Citizen Consumer to buy or sell their products. The result of the creation of a de-facto criminalization of both the “shipping cigarettes with intent to smoke” or the “facilitating a sale of the legal cigarette”, will be the establishment of a de-facto monopoly for Big Tobacco which would forever insure an ever-increasing profit margin for Big Tobacco and their Comrades in Collusion, our elected state and local officials and the once and future recipients of Big Tobacco’s most generous campaign contributions.

Take Back Your State… SGA (That Includes You New Yorkers)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 4th, 2005 at 10:43 pm by S. George Alfonso and is filed under Big Tobacco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.