Police State Activity

Police State Activity

The police have searched people's trunks. Some people were issued citations for having over 1 carton of cigs bought in Indiana, others were cited for having more than 3 packs.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Police State Activity!

Observed by Prison Planet Forum member "calcrusader" (aka: Cal) on July 6, 2009 at 1:30 a.m.:

I have friends in Michigan who try to buy cigarettes in Indiana. For awhile, Michigan's cig taxes made prices much higher than Indiana. People were getting randomly stopped (no reason noted) right over the border from Indiana. The police have searched people's trunks. Some people were issued citations for having over 1 carton of cigs bought in Indiana, others were cited for having more than 3 packs. There really is no specific law stating what is illegal, all the police when questioned about it give different answers. From what I've been told this has gone to court, and still the situation is not resolved. This has nothing to do with public safety, but everything to do with a Socialist governor in Michigan who wants to rule her subjects and tell them that they can only purchase certain items in certain places. This also has to do with greed for tax money.
I thought that the Federal government had control over interstate commerce.
Not that I agree with random checkpoints, but at least DUI's checkpoints' reasons are supposedly for public safety. Stopping people for buying cigarettes over the state border, though? Michigan sounds like a Communist country!
If I've got the story wrong, someone from Michigan or Indiana please chime in.




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(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 6-7-2009 by maggot_soldier]

Mod Note: Removed personal contact info from post. In future please add your thoughts and insights of the issue to your post in lieu of straight copying and pasting.

[edit on 7/6/2009 by maria_stardust]

pretty soon you'll see the sort of thing like whats going on in China at the moment

There are many specific laws regarding this. This is not a new phenomenon. Each state has specific taxes, and the cigarette packs are stamped accordingly. Going across state lines to buy goods is not illegal, but bringing them back to your state without paying the appropriate tax is illegal.

This situation is most common in regulated drugs, alcohol and tobacco!

I have never heard of the police getting involved, except during large scale investigations.

A long time family friend of mine is facing Federal charges and life in prison because he bought a cigarette manufacturing facility on an Indian Reservation and sold some unstamped cigarettes through his chain of convenience stores!

They take this stuff very seriously, and if you have friends that were slightly harassed, they should feel lucky. If the police wanted to be very strict, you could get three strikes by leaving the state, making an illegal purchase with intent to distribute, tax evasion, illegal import, interstate trafficking, etc., etc.!!!!

[edit on 6-7-2009 by getreadyalready]

Since it was over the 4th weekend I assume it was set up for fireworks that are leagal in Indiana and illegal in Michigan. They did the same thing when I lived in Illinois.
As for cigarettes, thats a first.

But not surprising.