Tennessee is getting tough on cigarettes:

The Tennessee Department of Revenue said Friday that it will begin conducting surveillance of state-line tobacco retailers in other states, looking for Tennesseans who are buying cigarettes there to avoid taxes.

Tennessee residents may legally possess no more than two cartons of cigarettes without the state tax stamp.

In July, Tennessee’s cigarette tax went from 20 cents per pack to 62 cents per pack, an incentive for many Tennessee residents to cross the state line to buy cigarettes at stores in neighboring states.

This, to me, comes close to running afoul of how the Interstate Commerce clause ought to be read. On the other hand, having to register things that you’ve purchased out of state is not something new and when it comes to guns we do it all the time. So wanting the in-state stamp of approval is not something new. My question is why, then, does this bother me so much? It’s not a smoker’s issue, in my mind, as I would react the same way if it were beer or playing cards or anything else. Also, I wouldn’t be bothered if cigarettes were banned in the state overall.

I can figure out why Tennessee would want to do this. No matter where you live within the state, you’re not too far from another state. So it would make sense that Tennessee, a high-sales tax state, would be touchy on this issue. So I came around to the idea that maybe giving people skirting the law a ticket would not be such a terribly bad idea. Then I read this:

Contraband cigarettes, and any vehicle in which they are transported, are subject to seizure, Farr said.

“If Revenue agents believe that an individual is transporting more than two cartons of cigarettes into Tennessee, the vehicle carrying the cigarettes will be stopped and searched,” Farr said. “If more than two cartons are found, the cigarettes will be seized and agents have the discretion to make arrests and seize the vehicle.”

That is an awful lot of discretion for a state police officer to have. I love the police, I do, but I don’t want them to have the power to decide whether to take someone’s five-year investment for getting some cigs while out of state.

I guess the main reason I am really uncomfortable is that this something that someone like me has done. Like Tennessee, Delosa is a high-sales-tax state with higher cigarette taxes than surrounding states. I would never go out of state for the sole purpose of buying cigarettes, but whenever I was out of the state I would make a point of picking some up. I actually did so even before I was a smoker because Mom would ask me to. I suppose if I heard about it the people of Tennessee have been warned about the consequences of doing such, but nonetheless people could face some pretty stiff consequences for committing a crime that it wouldn’t even occur to them is a crime. Also, this is not a new law. Even before this recent spate of publicity an officer could, if he wanted to, seize someone’s car for trying to skirt a little bit of sales tax.

Not sure about Tennessee, but in Delosa everyone skirts sales tax any time they leave the state. By Delosa state law, anything you purchase out of the state, you’re supposed to voluntarily pay state income tax. Nobody ever does, but the law is there. There was a hub-bub a couple years back when the State Treasurer slapped a fine on the Insurance Commissioner (both of whom were gearing up to run for the same higher office) for buying a bunch of furniture outside state lines and not paying the taxes on it. It all backfired on the Treasurer because everyone pretty much said “Holy crap! That’s illegal?!” and feared that the Treasurer would go after them next.

That’s just nuts.

State officials estimate that annually the new tax will bring in $195 million for education, $21 million for agricultural enhancements, and $12 million for trauma centers.

While I’m on the subject, couldn’t they at least pretend that this tax — a tax that will disproportionately target the poor and uneducated, I might add — has something (or at least more than 5%) to do with the public health?