Thought this need it's own thread and the deeper reasons why we are at where we are today.
What are the circumstances that lead up and resulted in Eric Garner’s death? Well, we probably have to go back to when the first tax was levied for whatever reason.
Cigarette tax evasion is big business. It cost the federal government and states billions in tax revenue every year. Also, in a 1998 settlement, major cigarette companies pay in perpetuity, into states healthcare systems based on legal sales.
I've opined on this site before how the underground economy is alive and well in the US. Everyone thinks it’s all about organized crime as seen on tv. It is, but they need distributors. Enter Eric Garner.
Eric Garner was a 9x felon because we, as a society, made him so. Think the drug war except the government is loosing money. Never forget, we are the government.
First paragraph is Kickers wheelhouse. Link below
“Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces overall consumption by as much as 5 percent and lowers the number of children who smoke by about 7 percent, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington.
At the same time, smuggling has been increasing because the higher the taxes, the more incentive there is for criminals, said Jeff Cohen, ATF associate chief counsel in Washington.”
Problem is that this is another tax on the lower income sector of our society. Those who can least afford it.
So now we know why the police were there that morning. Now we know why Eric Garner was again selling bootleg cigarettes trying to support a family. Hell they knew each other. The cops did not set out that morning to have someone die and Eric did not wake up that morning and said I’m going to resist arrest this time.
Now we have two minority cops killed who were transferred to a high crime minority district for that reason, they were minorities.
I have no answers and no reason for the insanity like I feel many don’t.
Link - (
New Window )
You tell me why the cops were there except for felony tax evasion that the government wanted vigorously pursued?
You tell me where I'm wrong?
I very well could be.
But it's an actual conversation.
Said I don't have a solution.
What's yours?
No more prosecution of tax evaders? At what level?
No, much deeper societal issues than that.
If you think it's as simplistic as that, good for you.
The city Law Department drafted the civil racketeering suit the same week that a Staten Island grand jury did not indict NYPD cop Daniel Pantaleo in Garner’s chokehold death, and it was quietly filed in Brooklyn federal court on Dec. 9.....
The city’s suit targets Discount Tobacco & Things of Woodbridge, Va., and its president, Gaby Nouhra, who are accused of conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Court papers say the smoke shop, located in a suburban strip mall outside Richmond, is where alleged Staten Island bootlegger Michael Zekry bought more than 2,500 cartons of cigarettes that cops found in his van last month....
De Blasio quietly filed untaxed cig suit the week of Garner decision - ( New Window )
Also, if you really believe "we as a society" made him a felon, you can go fuck yourself.
Also, if you really believe "we as a society" made him a felon, you can go fuck yourself.
Who made selling "loosies" a felony?
Shep, I feel privileged, thanks.
What you get from relying too much on spellcheck.
Since we as taxpayers are footing the bill for the ill effects of cigarettes, we have a right to pass that cost on to the manufacturers and consumers of cigarettes in the form of taxes.
As ctc notes, this is a regressive tax that hits those with low incomes the hardest. However, part of the purpose of the tax is to prevent people from getting addicted by making cigarettes very expensive.
As far as "loosies" go, the best policy is just to confiscate the cigarettes themselves. The economic loss from confiscating even a few dozen cartons would make the practice of selling loosies not very profitable. As with drugs, busting the street vendors is completely ineffective because someone will take the place of whoever gets arrested. You have to cut off the distribution point and make the enterprise not profitable.
do those same people advocate to keep laws against growing your own tobacco in place, raise taxes on tobacco out the yingus and ban the sale of single cigs?
tobacco, nicotene, ironically, one of the few substances that can ease the symptoms of those same mental illnesses.
what the fuck? this issue, narrowly, has nothing to do with the police, this is about serious insanity and hypocracy in our laws.
Negative symptoms are defined as a decline or absence in the traits needed for normal functioning. These include loss of interest in everyday activities, lack of emotion, social withdrawal, reduced ability to plan or carry out activities, neglect of personal hygiene, and loss of motivation.
“Although smoking has a wide range of well-established ill effects on human health, these findings do raise the possibility of exploring nicotinic pathways for novel treatments of schizophrenia,” said the researchers.
In two large independent samples, researchers found that Chinese men with schizophrenia were more than twice as likely to smoke cigarettes compared to those without schizophrenia, and half as likely to quit smoking.
Among the combined 1,139 male patients with schizophrenia, smoking was found to be consistently and significantly associated with reduced negative symptoms on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and it remained consistent even after researchers took into account antipsychotic use.
Spelling aside, kind of proves what my point is. Nobody wants a conversation.
Oip and Alli are taking this down the road I thought it would go. It may not be pretty.
A conversation, IMHO, that needs to be had with everyone looking in the mirror.
I just wanted to see what it is you consider newsworthy and I'll admit to still not knowing.
but, you REALLY want to live in a country that makes tobacco illegal and makes pot legal?
REALLY? i am sorry, but that is just fucking stupid.
History of tobacco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Part of a series on
Tobacco
HISTORY
History of tobacco
BIOLOGY
Nicotiana (Nicotiana tabacum)
Nicotine
Tobacco diseases
Types of tobacco
PERSONAL AND SOCIAL IMPACT
Health effects
Prevalence of consumption
Tobacco advertising
Tobacco and art
Tobacco and other drugs
Tobacco control
Tobacco politics
Tobacco smoking
Tobacconist
PRODUCTION
Cultivation of tobacco
Curing of tobacco
Tobacco industry
Tobacco products
v t e
Tobacco has a long history from its usages in the early Americas. It became increasingly popular with the arrival of the Europeans by whom it was heavily traded. Following the industrial revolution, cigarettes were becoming popularized, which fostered yet another unparalleled increase in growth. This remained so until the scientific revelations in the mid-1900s.
Contents [hide]
1 Early history
1.1 European discovery
1.2 Plantations in Virginia
2 Modern history
2.1 Health concerns
3 In science
4 References
4.1 Notes
4.2 Bibliography
5 External links
Early history[edit]
Tobacco had already long been used in the Americas by the time European settlers arrived and introduced the practice to Europe, where it became popular. At high doses, tobacco can become hallucinogenic;[1] accordingly, Native Americans did not always use the drug recreationally. Instead, it was often consumed as an entheogen; among some tribes, this was done only by experienced shamans or medicine men.[citation needed] Eastern North American tribes would carry large amounts of tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item and would often smoke it in pipes, either in defined ceremonies that were considered sacred, or to seal a bargain,[2] and they would smoke it at such occasions in all stages of life, even in childhood.[3] It was believed that tobacco was a gift from the Creator and that the exhaled tobacco smoke was capable of carrying one's thoughts and prayers to heaven.[4]
Apart from smoking, tobacco had a number of uses as medicine. As a pain killer it was used for earache and toothache and occasionally as a poultice. Smoking was said by the desert Indians to be a cure for colds, especially if the tobacco was mixed with the leaves of the small desert sage, Salvia dorrii, or the root of Indian balsam or cough root, Leptotaenia multifida, the addition of which was thought to be particularly good for asthma and tuberculosis.[5] Uncured tobacco was often eaten, used in enemas, or drunk as extracted juice.[citation needed] Early missionaries often reported on the ecstatic state caused by tobacco. As its use spread into Western cultures, however, it was no longer used primarily for entheogenic or religious purposes, although religious use of tobacco is still common among many indigenous peoples, particularly in the Americas. Among the Cree and Ojibway of Canada and the north-central United States, it is offered to the Creator, with prayers, and is used in sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, smudging, and is presented as a gift. A gift of tobacco is tradition when asking an Ojibway elder a question of a spiritual nature. Because of its sacred nature, tobacco abuse (thoughtlessly and addictively chain smoking) is seriously frowned upon by the Algonquian tribes of Canada, as it is believed that if one so abuses the plant, it will abuse that person in return, causing sickness. The proper and traditional native way of offering the smoke is said to involve directing it toward the four cardinal points (north, south, east, and west), rather than holding it deeply within the lungs for prolonged periods.[6]
European discovery[edit]
The earliest image of a man smoking a pipe, from Tabaco by Anthony Chute.
Las Casas vividly described how the first scouts sent by Columbus into the interior of Cuba found
men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like those the boys make on the day of the Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having lighted one part of it, by the other they suck, absorb, or receive that smoke inside with the breath, by which they become benumbed and almost drunk, and so it is said they do not feel fatigue. These, muskets as we will call them, they call tabacos. I knew Spaniards on this island of Española who were accustomed to take it, and being reprimanded for it, by telling them it was a vice, they replied they were unable to cease using it. I do not know what relish or benefit they found in it.[7]
Rodrigo de Jerez was one of the Spanish crewmen who sailed to the Americas on the Santa Maria as part of Christopher Columbus's first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492. He is credited with being the first European smoker.[citation needed]
Following the arrival of Europeans, tobacco became one of the primary products fueling colonization, and also became a driving factor in the incorporation of African slave labor. The Spanish introduced tobacco to Europeans in about 1528, and by 1533, Diego Columbus mentioned a tobacco merchant of Lisbon in his will, showing how quickly the traffic had sprung up. Nicot, French ambassador in Lisbon, sent samples to Paris in 1559. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese initially referred to the plant as the "sacred herb" because of its valuable medicinal properties.[7] In 1571, a Spanish doctor named Nicolas Monardes wrote a book about the history of medicinal plants of the new world. In this he claimed that tobacco could cure 36 health problems.[8]
Sir Walter Raleigh introduced "Virginia tobacco into England. "Raleigh's First Pipe in England", included in Frederick William Fairholt's Tobacco, its history and associations.
Sir Walter Raleigh is credited with taking the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe, referring to it as tobah as early as 1578. In 1595 Anthony Chute published Tabaco, which repeated earlier arguments about the benefits of the plant and emphasised the health-giving properties of pipe-smoking.
The importation of tobacco into Europe was not without resistance and controversy in the 17th century. Stuart King James I wrote a famous polemic titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, in which the king denounced tobacco use as "[a] custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." In that same year, an English statute was enacted that placed a heavy protective tariff on every pound of tobacco brought into England.[9]
The Japanese were introduced to tobacco by Portuguese sailors from 1542.
Tobacco first arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century,[10] where it attracted the attention of doctors[11] and became a commonly prescribed medicine for many ailments. Although tobacco was initially prescribed as medicine, further study led to claims that smoking caused dizziness, fatigue, dulling of the senses, and a foul taste/odour in the mouth.[12]
A tobacco plantation in Queensland, in 1933.
Sultan Murad IV banned smoking in the Ottoman Empire in 1633, and the offense was punishable by death.[13] When the ban was lifted by his successor, Ibrahim the Mad, it was instead taxed. In 1682, Damascene jurist Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi declared: "Tobacco has now become extremely famous in all the countries of Islam ... People of all kinds have used it and devoted themselves to it ... I have even seen young children of about five years applying themselves to it."[14] In 1750, a Damascene townsmen observed "a number of women greater than the men, sitting along the bank of the Barada River. They were eating and drinking, and drinking coffee and smoking tobacco just as the men were doing."[14]
Tobacco smoking first reached Australian shores when it was introduced to northern-dwelling Indigenous communities by visiting Indonesian fishermen in the early 18th century. British patterns of tobacco use were transported to Australia along with the new settlers in 1788; and in the years following colonisation, British smoking behaviour was rapidly adopted by Indigenous people as well. By the early 19th century tobacco was an essential commodity routinely issued to servants, prisoners and ticket-of-leave men (conditionally released convicts) as an inducement to work, or conversely, withheld as a means of punishment.[15]
Plantations in Virginia[edit]
This 1670 painting shows enslaved Africans working in the tobacco sheds of a colonial tobacco plantation.
See also: Tobacco in the American Colonies
In 1609, English colonist John Rolfe arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, and became the first settler to successfully raise tobacco (commonly referred to at that time as "brown gold")[16] for commercial use. The tobacco raised in Virginia at that time, Nicotiana rustica,[citation needed] did not suit European tastes, but Rolfe raised a more popular variety, Nicotiana tabacum, from seeds brought with him from Bermuda.[citation needed] Tobacco was used as currency by the Virginia settlers for years, and Rolfe was able to make his fortune in farming it for export at Varina Farms Plantation.
When he left for England with his wife, Pocahontas a daughter of Chief Powhatan, he had become wealthy. Returning to Jamestown, following Pocahontas' death in England, Rolfe continued in his efforts to improve the quality of commercial tobacco, and, by 1620, 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of tobacco were shipped to England. By the time John Rolfe died in 1622, Jamestown was thriving as a producer of tobacco, and its population had topped 4,000. Tobacco led to the importation of the colony's first black slaves in 1619. In the year 1616, 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) of tobacco were produced in Jamestown, Virginia, quickly rising up to 119,000 pounds (54,000 kg) in 1620.[citation needed]
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, tobacco continued to be the cash crop of the Virginia Colony, as well as The Carolinas. Large tobacco warehouses filled the areas near the wharves of new, thriving towns such as Dumfries on the Potomac, Richmond and Manchester at the fall line (head of navigation) on the James, and Petersburg on the Appomattox.
Modern history[edit]
A historian of the American South in the late 1860s reported on typical usage in the region where it was grown:[17]
The chewing of tobacco was well-nigh universal. This habit had been widespread among the agricultural population of America both North and South before the war. Soldiers had found the quid a solace in the field and continued to revolve it in their mouths upon returning to their homes. Out of doors where his life was principally led the chewer spat upon his lands without offence to other men, and his homes and public buildings were supplied with spittoons. Brown and yellow parabolas were projected to right and left toward these receivers, but very often without the careful aim which made for clean living. Even the pews of fashionable churches were likely to contain these familiar conveniences. The large numbers of Southern men, and these were of the better class (officers in the Confederate army and planters, worth $20,000 or more, and barred from general amnesty) who presented themselves for the pardon of President Johnson, while they sat awaiting his pleasure in the ante-room at the White House, covered its floor with pools and rivulets of their spittle. An observant traveller in the South in 1865 said that in his belief seven-tenths of all persons above the age of twelve years, both male and female, used tobacco in some form. Women could be seen at the doors of their cabins in their bare feet, in their dirty one-piece cotton garments, their chairs tipped back, smoking pipes made of corn cobs into which were fitted reed stems or goose quills. Boys of eight or nine years of age and half-grown girls smoked. Women and girls "dipped" in their houses, on their porches, in the public parlors of hotels and in the streets.
Until 1883, tobacco excise tax accounted for one third of internal revenue collected by the United States government. Internal Revenue Service data for 1879-80 show total tobacco tax receipts of $38.9 million, out of total receipts of $116.8 million.[18] Following the American Civil War, the tobacco industry struggled as it attempted to adapt. Not only did the labor force change from slavery to sharecropping, but a change in demand also occurred. As in Europe, there was a desire for not only snuff, pipes and cigars, but cigarettes appeared as well.
With a change in demand and a change in labor force, James Bonsack, an avid craftsman, in 1881 created a machine that revolutionized cigarette production. The machine chopped the tobacco, then dropped a certain amount of the tobacco into a long tube of paper, which the machine would then roll and push out the end where it would be sliced by the machine into individual cigarettes. This machine operated at thirteen times the speed of a human cigarette roller.[19]
This caused an enormous growth in the tobacco industry, that lasted well into the 20th century, until the scientific revelations discovering health consequences of smoking,[20] and tobacco companies adding chemical additives were revealed.
In the United States, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) became law in 2009. It gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products to protect public health. [21]
As far as resisting arrest goes? Never a great idea because we've seen way too often that cops are regular people. That means that far too often they are as stupid as the rest of us morons.
Having said that, the chokehold was not allowed in his department.
When he wasn't responding they should have helped him.
When he wasn't responding, they should have called the EMTs.
The cops negligently caused his death.
This is why there is distrust of cops--the good ones as well as the bad ones.
As a white male who doesn't break the law, I have found that my interaction with cops is mostly that they are fucking assholes in how they deal with people. They need to work on that for everyone's sake. 50/50 good cop/asshole cop sucks as a ratio.
duh
I just wanted to see what it is you consider newsworthy and I'll admit to still not knowing.
Garner ended up dead because, we, thought the actions of our elected officials, think that selling "loosies" is a felony due to the lost tax and health revenue. That is the only reason the cops were there that day for that reason.
How about Johnson's Great Society? We have spent trillions.
Success or failure?
Why are we where we are today?
I stated I don't have the answer.
I wanted to start a conversation that everyone seems to want to have. Guess I was wrong.
It is my hope that one of them drops by to explain it.
Is that a fact? Did they actually witness Garner selling loosies at that time? Garner said he wasn't. Is there any police video of cigarette sales at that time? Did they arrest any buyers? Did Garner, when selling loosies, sell cigarettes that he bought legally and paid the tax due? Or did he purchase and sell illegal cigarettes, and if so what happened to those distributing to him? This event did not happen in a vacuum.
As a white male who doesn't break the law, I have found that my interaction with cops is mostly that they are fucking assholes in how they deal with people. They need to work on that for everyone's sake. 50/50 good cop/asshole cop sucks as a ratio.
That was a very good post, Randy. So, I'm not really disagreeing with anything you said. Just want to point out one little thing that basically comes out of what you were saying..
I too am a white male. But I break the law all the time. I drive over the speed limit every day. Not by much and I have never been in accident. But I still go over the limit routinely.
Like 99% of America who are eligible to itemize, I also stretch the truth on my tax return about certain tax deductible items. That is tax fraud.
I jaywalk all the time. Even when I cross at the crosswalk, I don't stay in those white lines but instead cut over in whichever direction I'm heading.
I try not to drink and drive now that I'm a mature adult. But I have done many times in the past.
I have also smoked pot, snorted coke, speed, and heroin. Took LSD twice. I also have passed it to others, which is the legal equivalent of selling.
My point: we all commit petty illegalities all the time. But some people--like Eric Garner--are more likely to get in trouble with the law for them.
When I was young and drove and old bomb of a car, I got pulled over all the time. I especially got pulled over when I had someone who is black in the car with me. It got to the point where I could not give my friend Winston a ride home because he lived in Bed-Stuy and whenever the cops see a black and white guy together in that neighborhood, it was an automatic pull over. Black and white guy together? They must be conducting a drug deal. They couldn't possibly be friends and colleagues.
And sorry to get on the soapbox, but that stuff pisses me off so much.
It is my hope that one of them drops by to explain it.
Years ago, before log in, I was going to write a paper on the difficulty of recruiting minorities into the fire/police service despite efforts for inclusion for my capstone and ran it by BBI.
While the cultural norms explained the reasons back then, it seems to have gotten worse, not better.
Why in a community like Ferguson, is the minority ratio like it is on the police department?
Why do young minorities not see a career in the police/fire department as a viable option?
They walk in with their lawyers with prearranged plea deals. They pay their finds with investor money.
The elected officials decided it was a better arrest. Not the cops.
I do wonder what will happen when everyone stops smoking. The governments of states and fed are getting quite a lot of revenue from tobacco and now pot, but do they really want to encourage more smoking?