A post by the e-cigarette community at
suggests it may be a great source of analytical and newsworthy information on counterfeit cigarettes. Here is CRE’ s invitation to them:
To Members of the ECF:
We were particularly impressed with this post made by Thalium:
We have an Interactive Public Docket dedicated to counterfeit cigarettes, see
The IPD is in Beta, meaning it will go live shortly. The home page is restricted to posts made by CRE. However you will note three Discussion Forums on the right hand side of the page accepts posts from the public. When they are up and running we would appreciate your views.
A note of concern. In order to maximize public participation, we have no registration but the posts are moderated, meaning we have control over the posts.
We do this for two reasons: (1) to control crude language, and (2) to limit posts to meaningful comments, data and studies.
The “Enforcement” Forum is limited to posts dealing with actioins taken to enforce counterfeit laws, these could include newspaper articles and related materials.
The “Public Comment” Forum is for the public to express their views, but one sentence views are not helpful, we would like reasoned replies like ECF members made on this post
http://www.thecre.com/tpsac/?p=1027
You will note the depth of these posts are higher than the norm.
The Study Forum is for you to post any studies on counterfeit. Yes our technology allows you to attach lengthy documents.
Finally the news forum is to post newspaper articles or blog articles on counterfeit.
We will announce on this new members site when the IPD is up and running, in the meantime you may reply to this post at
http://www.thecre.com/tpsacnews/?p=369
Jim Tozzi
Center for Regulatory Effectiveness
Before switching to vaping I was buying all my cigarettes from somewhere in the Ukraine via the internet. This was entirely due to the high cost of cigarettes, which I couldn’t afford. When the PACT act made it a felony to receive cigarettes through the US mail I realized that if I were caught I might get sent to jail and they wouldn’t let me smoke in jail–quite a quandary! So I did some research trying to figure out a way around this problem and discovered information on a device called an e-cigarette. I figured it was worth a try (I’d already tried every other method available, unsuccessfully). I was SHOCKED when I accidentally quit smoking. I’ve smoked for 46 years! I have now been smoke-free for a year, which never ceases to amaze me. If e-cigarettes are banned I will definitely participate in the black market which will arise immediately. I have also stockpiled supplies for that eventuality. I think that as long as the government continues to increase the “sin” tax on cigarettes to the point that regular folks can’t afford them, then regular folks will begin purchasing them on the black market, just like I did. It’s a no-brainer. As to whether these cigarettes are any less healthy than the ones you get at the store–I doubt it. In fact, my guess is that they are MORE healthy, relatively speaking, because they don’t have the fire-safe papers which everyone hates. I’ve heard quite a bit of anecdotal information that smokers had no visible ill-effects until they started smoking the “fire-safe” cigarettes and they immediately started getting health problems. I never had one of those myself because I had already switched to illegal cigarettes because of finances before the government had THAT bright idea.
So I guess I’d be of the opinion that people are going to purchase black market cigarettes if they can and they’ll probably be better off, both financially and medically by so doing.