Give Me Tobacco Or Give Me Death! Or at least monetary compensation for my estimated losses.

I don't care about politics. I really don't.

That said, I am devastated and infuriated to learn today about the PACT Act that was passed in July by Congress. The PACT Act, or Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009, does pretty much what the name tells you it does and prevents the "trafficking" of cigarettes via telephone, the mail, or the Internet. While I don't smoke cigarettes and am not particularly fond of them, I have become more irritated recently by the continued assaults on tobacco companies by people who hate the idea of a tobacco being used by anyone anywhere in America or the world and who want to see "Big Tobacco" destroyed and used as filler for divots on golf courses. They need to relax.

Still, I wouldn't care too much about the law or even know about it if it stuck only to the trafficking of cigarettes. However, it seems that Congress is strongly opposed to the idea of a college kid making a few extra bucks from his dorm room, because the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act also extends to prohibit the sale and distribution of smokeless tobacco via mail, telephone, or Internet. This is where we have a problem, and where I am facing a loss of money that I was expecting to make this semester and the demise of a business opportunity.

I sold tins of smokeless tobacco last school year in my dorm. I bought the tins from a tobacco site online for half as cheap as convenience stores near my school sold them. I then charged slightly higher than the convenience stores and rounded up to an even dollar amount. My customers were happy because they saved themselves the walk to the store when they needed a buzz, and I was happy because I was selling tins for twice as much as I paid for them and was making a nice profit. I've been eyeing this semester as a big one for business, with plans to expand my marketing scheme, target market, and inventory, and looking at what should have been some nice spending money to make up for my Summer of Negative Money. However, I am now forced to put all my eggs in one basket with another business opportunity that I am undertaking with my Italian one-time roommate. We won't talk about that here.

I demand my liberties back. I demand to be allowed to buy tobacco on the Internet for cheaper than average prices, have it shipped to my school's mailroom in discreet US Postal Service boxes, and sell it at a fair price to my nicotine addicted classmates, occasionally indulging in a tin of my own if the situation calls for it. Repeal the PACT Act! Repeal the PACT Act!