Roll Your Own Cigarettes in New Hampshire

By Jim on July 21st, 2010

It amuses me, to a certain degree, to see this sort of thing going on.

The state is suing two more businesses that let customers roll their own cigarettes, avoiding paying a two-cent per cigarette fee.

The retailers, East-West Distributors d/b/a Smoke N Discounts of Epsom and Tobacco Depot of Seabrook, recently installed cigarette-making machines capable of making a carton of cigarettes in about eight minutes, according to Attorney General Michael A. Delaney.

Richard Rigazio, owner of Tobacco Depot, declined comment. UnionLeader.com was unable to reach anyone from Smoke N Discounts.

The stores sell pipe tobacco and materials needed to make the cigarettes, and then provide customers with access to the machines which, the state claims, makes the stores cigarette manufacturers that must comply with the Non-Participating Manufacturers Act and the Directory Act.

At issue is the $50 million a year the state gets from a 1998 settlement with tobacco companies over Medicaid costs incurred by patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses. The fear is if the state does not enforce the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) of 1998, that the tobacco companies will stop paying the annual $50 million.

Why are people even buying this stuff any more? Ecigarettes are a much better, cheaper and healthier alternative.

Click the Green Smoke link in the sidebar to get more info about Green Smoke products (I’m an affiilate for them BTW).

Tobacco based cigarettes are a disgusting way to get nicotine. Who would smoke them in 2010? Ecigs are a viable alternative. I enjoy puffing on my ecig with a cup of tea or coffee, and I don’t have to pay the ridiculous tobacco taxes. Nor do I stink like tobacco or have a nasty cough. I get my nicotine, with the flavor I enjoy and without the crap the tobacco companies put into tobacco cigarettes.

It boggles the mind that there’s even a controversy here to speak of at this point. Although I do understand where the government is coming from, they feed off the tobacco industry like a tick off a deer’s ass. So they want every cent they can get from cigarette sales.