Coming Soon: Illegal Cigarettes at a Bootlegger Near You!

Coming Soon: Illegal Cigarettes at a Bootlegger Near You!

A commentary by: J. D. Longstreet
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The one thing my family and the Kennedy family has in common is bootlegging!

Oh, yes, I am a southern boy, a piedmont (foothills of the mountains)southern boy, and I hail from a long and distinguished line of some of the finest bootleggers in the country. And – I am proud of it. Back in the days of yore - it was an honorable profession. (Whiskey making, I mean.) Even our first President made whiskey. A number of our country's Founding Fathers were smugglers. There's not that much difference between "smuggler" and "bootlegger". OK, enough semantics, already!

Why in the world do I bring up such as thing as this now? Keep reading:

The government has just done what bootleggers all over the North American continent have been praying for. They have all but outlawed smoking. Well they HAVE outlawed smoking any tobacco product worth a damn. That is to say - any tobacco product with enough nicotine in it to produce that tiny little squirt of glucose and shoot it into one’s blood stream. That little squirt then tells the brain to release endorphins, or whatever it is the brain releases to make one feel better, to calm one down, to take the edge off an appetite, and to generally make life worth living for a hour, or so, more. But our socialist friends, in our socialist government, cannot stand it when the “proletariat” feels good. Therefore, the ban on cigarettes - on ANY tobacco product with enough nicotine to calm the nerves of the masses. They had to be banished! the US government are like patents yelling at their kids: “STOP HAVING FUN!” We have told you over and over that socialist believe in everybody suffering equally! Are you beginning to get the picture?

The bootleggers, as of today, are gearing up. There will be cigarette factories in every city, every town, and every hamlet manufacturing cigarettes with enough nicotine in them to satisfy the smoker/ And - if the bootleggers are smart - they may even produce bootleg cigarettes with even more nicotine in them than "tax paid" cigarettes to REALLY get the smoker hooked. They will sell like candy! Bootleggers stand to make a fortune… tax-free. And, like the original prohibition, the general public will be pulling for the bootleggers.

My office is only a few doors from the former office of one of the largest and most successful cigarette bootleggers in the south - back a few decades ago when southerners were running bootleg cigarettes up north by the tractor trailer loads because of the outlandish taxes states like New York were placing on tobacco products. I reside in the state that produced more tobacco than any other state in the United States. So, I do know a little something about it.

The southern border of the US will be kept hot with the passage of illegal cigarettes making their way north, into the US, and they will be snapped up by smokers as fast as they can be delivered. The same holds true for bootleggers coming south across the American/Canadian border. By air, by land, by sea, the cigarettes are coming!

Soon, Obama will have to create an FDA police force (if we don’t already have one!). They will be charged with hunting down those really BAD cigarette bootleggers just like the DEA hunts down the dope dealers. Actually, I suspect the DEA may get this job added to their current job description. (Wonder how many DEA agents are smokers? HA!)

There are millions to be made on illegal cigarettes. You are kidding yourself if you do not believe there are those entrepreneurs amongst us preparing, right now, as I write this screed, to locate producers, growers, and some "good ole boys" with a few tractor trailer trucks sitting idle, to set up a money making business that would make GM and Chrysler green with envy.

Illegal cigarettes may yet turn out to be far more profitable than illegal dope! How’s that for the government screwing themselves again with “the law of unintended consequences?” Why, there is so much money to be made from illegal cigarettes it would tempt a church deacon!

Heck, I’m getting excited just writing about it. It is my heritage, I suppose. My bootlegger genes are aroused! The air around my computer is fogged-in with a blue haze from the pipe tobacco I am puffing as I write. Hey, all I have to do to grow the stuff is plant it in my backyard here in North Carolina. I can grow and cure my own, shred it, and smoke it! Hot dang! Just like the good ole days!

J. D. Longstreet
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Conservative