Panic Order from Washington State

[Roo]

As some of you are following, as of 1 hour ago it's a class C felony where I live to do one of the following (from the Substitute Bill of House Bill 1249):

A person may not ship tobacco products, other than cigars, purchased by mail or through the Internet to anyone in Washington other than a licensed wholesaler or retailer. A person may not, with knowledge, provide substantial assistance to someone violating this tobacco shipping restriction.

Is it cause for panic? I just re-read the entire bill, and in my reading of it the purpose of course is to curb illicit sales of cigs and tobacco to minors. To ensure that minors can't order tobacco, it is now illegal to ship internet or phone orders here to any of our freedom-loving citizens. To me, the phrasing "provide substantial assistance to someone violating this tobacco shipping restriction" indicates that the primary targets of the bill are the vendors.

I do not consider spending $50 on a website that has no problems sending me their product and breaking my state laws "providing substantial assistance" if I am not made aware of these laws by the vendor in question. Not even Getsnus has made any mention of it, and they are well aware of US State tobacco laws, so I expect them to stop selling to me ASAP. Please post here if you buy from them soon and see anything about it.

So I made a couple panic orders. 16 cans from Getsnus, and 19 cans from buysnus. I have 25 sealed cans in my freezer, 5 open crappy ones, and 9 open in the fridge. I guess that will last a while. When I get close to running out, I will likely just place an order from whoever will ship it to me as long as the site makes no mention of the law. I think the fact that I have not been made aware of this law by anyone but snuson.com members would hold up pretty well in court if it came to that. They don't have to know who Roo is 8)

If I can get someone to ship here, I will probably continue to do so. I figure that if I can go to a website and successfully order a roll of Montecristo Los right now, that same site will probably not discriminate in the future based on which US State I live in... Anyway, I'm not rich, so this is what I could get away with at present:


Oden's Extra Stark Portion 10-Pack - first roll ever LOL
Gotlandssnus Anis (Grey) Loose~ Single
GetSnus Mystery Can FREE Single $0.00
Skruf Stark Loose (45g) 5-pack
Oden's Extra Stark Loose x 2

Gustavus Original Portion 1pack
Göteborgs Prima Fint loose 1pack
Knox portion 3pack
LD Black Portion 1pack
Offroad - Original loose 1pack - for Zman
Phantom Classic Brown Portion 1pack
Thunder Extra Strong Original Loose 1pack
Thunder Extra Strong Original portion 1pack
Thunder Frosted Extra Strong portion 4pack
Thunder Frosted MINI Plus 1pack
1 random can of snus 1pack

Total bill $100.25. $2.86 per can including shipping. Damn I'm gonna miss these days.

EDIT: Long post. Sorry. Just wanted to add something for WA residents: If you can convince a friend, family member, or snuson member to mail you snus, you can write them a letter with a check or other form of payment enclosed. I'm not kidding. If you call or email them, they would technically be breaking the law, but if you write them a letter, use smoke signals, messenger pigeons, or ESP everyone is safe.

EDIT AGAIN: I just came across this from a House Bill Report on this law. I'll provide a link below. This is from page 4 of the pdf.

Retailers do have a problem with Internet sellers, but the bill will only hurt current Washington licensees who ship tobacco products. They are licensed and easily subject to sanction. The bill will not affect online retailers because of the difficulty of enforcement against them.

OK I don't know what to think anymore. If you live in Washington State and/or have any understanding of this that I'm missing, please chime in for some clarification.

I don't know how to link pdf's so go here if you're interested and click on House Bill Report: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1249

[geeeeoffff]

it appears that they are making it illegal for a Washington company to sell tobacco online to other Washingtonians.

I'm kind of confused as to how they plan on enforcing this with out of state companies. they can't legally inspect the mail, and I'm not sure if people and companies in other states or countries have to comply with our state's law enforcement.

EDIT:

i'm guessing that the state will issue a bunch of orders to every tobacco website it can find. then when they get their orders they will use the completed orders as reasonable suspicion to issue some court orders for customer records or something. etc

One thing that occured to me, this law is probably secretly intended to prevent people from evading cigarette tax laws. There are no snus taxes in this state as far as i know, so they might not be that interested in going after snus websites.

the attorney general may not even be aware of snus.

[zmanzero]

something they might be able to do is order from some online companies and see if they deliver to them. then get a subpoena to find all the customers that the company sold to in washington. maybe make a lot of money in fines and gets the company to not ship there anymore. just a scenario. i sure hope they don't start pulling crap like that where i live.

edit - heh heh, posted this and when it was done saw the edit above.

[sagedil]

I don't think a company based in Sweden will have to comply with a subpoena issued by Washington State.

[geeeeoffff]

yeah, so i guess swedishsnus.com or swedish shipped northerner.com should be safe right?

but then don't you risk having to pay a lot for customs? or is that only for UPS orders?

[sagedil]

Only UPS.

In over a year and a half hear, NO USPS orders have ever been tagged by US customs. ONLY time US customs has ever made an appearance is UPS order.

If folks want to breathe easier, someone in Washington place an order!!!

[TBD]

Just for the record I had ONE USPS order from buysnus got slowed down in customs. At least it had a Customs sticker on it and had been opened. It also took 3 weeks to arrive at my door. No trouble and no money was asked for or required.

[shikitohno]

I'm no sort of legal expert, but wouldn't placing orders and issuing subpoenas to the ones that complete the order constitute entrapment? If it did, that would be thrown out in court in an instant. A lot of drug dealers won't sell to people unless they specifically ask to buy a drug, just because undercover agents aren't allowed to do that. They have to wait for you to say, "Hey, want some crack?" If they asked you to sell them some, doesn't matter if you've got a kilo of crack and an AK-47 in the car, they can't take it from you or bust you for it. Just something I learned while living near NYC, not sure if it applies in this case.

[geeeeoffff]

I'm no sort of legal expert, but wouldn't placing orders and issuing subpoenas to the ones that complete the order constitute entrapment? If it did, that would be thrown out in court in an instant. A lot of drug dealers won't sell to people unless they specifically ask to buy a drug, just because undercover agents aren't allowed to do that. They have to wait for you to say, "Hey, want some crack?" If they asked you to sell them some, doesn't matter if you've got a kilo of crack and an AK-47 in the car, they can't take it from you or bust you for it. Just something I learned while living near NYC, not sure if it applies in this case.

welp, wouldn't the website itself be like them saying "hey bro, want some tax free cigs?"

[whokilledmyhooker]

Couldn't you just plead ignorance until you get caught?

I mean it's a new law, it's not like every tobacco user in WA knows about this.

[geeeeoffff]

ignorance is definitely not an acceptable defense for felony charges. it might fly in traffic court, as in, "i didn't know the speed limit was 45 here".

[Roo]

Couldn't you just plead ignorance until you get caught?

I mean it's a new law, it's not like every tobacco user in WA knows about this.

I'm leaning more toward this perspective. I've been in court a lot. I'm fine with taking the risk, if people will still sell to me. Then again, I just got a "scofflaw" ticket the other day. What is it you ask? Long boring story. But telling maybe... We shall see. I'll jeep all you Washingtonians posted. I'm drunk.

[asnider123]

Possible solution: get a mailbox at a UPS Store in some other state. Tell the UPS store to forward all mail to your address in WA. That way no licensed seller is shipping to you in WA state! Just my 2 cents

[geeeeoffff]

Possible solution: get a mailbox at a UPS Store in some other state. Tell the UPS store to forward all mail to your address in WA. That way no licensed seller is shipping to you in WA state! Just my 2 cents

if possible, that's actually a pretty good idea. i wonder how much that would end up costing though.

also, seems kinda shady from UPS's point of view

[shikitohno]

I'm no sort of legal expert, but wouldn't placing orders and issuing subpoenas to the ones that complete the order constitute entrapment? If it did, that would be thrown out in court in an instant. A lot of drug dealers won't sell to people unless they specifically ask to buy a drug, just because undercover agents aren't allowed to do that. They have to wait for you to say, "Hey, want some crack?" If they asked you to sell them some, doesn't matter if you've got a kilo of crack and an AK-47 in the car, they can't take it from you or bust you for it. Just something I learned while living near NYC, not sure if it applies in this case.

welp, wouldn't the website itself be like them saying "hey bro, want some tax free cigs?"

Yes, but that website isn't an officer of the law. Entrapment rules really only apply to law enforcement, since the idea is to keep cops from inviting people to break the law and arresting them to look better. I can't think of any situation where a corporation/store/business could be charged with such crimes except one. If there was a website that advertised tax free cigarettes and sent your info to the cops whenever they got an order, maybe.