With the kind perverse priorities only big-government can bring, Michigan lawmakers are focusing their attention on what apparently is the new class of hardened criminals: people who drive interstate to buy cigarettes. Michigan has one of the highest tobacco taxes in the nation, combined with a regulatory framework seemingly adapted en bloc from a 1950's USSR policy handbook: it is illegal to possess cigarettes in Michigan without a Michigan tax sticker. In a turn of events that were blindingly obvious to everyone except Michigan lawmakers, taxable cigarette sales are down 30% since 2001, when the cigarette tax was $1.25 cents cheaper per pack, as people exercise the freedom they thought this country was founded upon by driving interstate. Rather than doing the sensible thing and lowering taxes, Michigan wants to jail its citizens. Under proposed penalties, individuals will be JAILED for possessing less than one carton of non-stamped tobacco. Freedom of trade is apparently a crime. Of course, despite a budgetary crisis, enough money is available to conduct undercover operations, and establish networks of informants submitting 'tips'.
"If you take away their right to be involved in the sale of tobacco that would be a significant deterrent…” said Lt. Judy Anderson, head of the Tobacco Tax Enforcement Team. Funny, I thought the point of rights was that the government couldn’t take them away. Thought we had something about inalienable rights written down somewhere. Guess I was wrong.
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