Smokers Fight SCHIP With Tea Bags

Jennings Brown
Posted: March 30, 2009

Cigar stores and pro-smoking organizations are encouraging smokers to send tea bags and images of tea bags to the White House or members of Congress to protest the increased taxation on cigarettes and cigars to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

"Sending a tea bag is a relatively easy, non-expensive way to express your dissatisfaction," said Eloise Ensminger, owner of the Pipe and Tobacco Shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. Ensminger is one of many tobacconists who are encouraging their customers to send the politically charged leaf-filled pouches to Washington, D.C., sometime before April 15.

Ensminger fears she will not be able to keep her store open much longer due to the combination of SCHIP taxation and the recent Arkansas state excise tax increase from 32 to 68 percent on cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco.

The modern "Tea Party" movement began last month when CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli bluntly criticized the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as onlookers cheered in approval. The commentator concluded his rant by saying, "We're thinking about having a Chicago tea party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start organizing." Santelli was referring to a modern-day version of the historic Boston Tea Party.

Since Santelli's tirade on February 20, several Web sites and organizations have been created to encourage those dissatisfied with recent government taxations and bailouts to protest in-person or through tea bag—filled packages. Many involved in the cigar industry have decided to protest the SCHIP tax increases by the same means.

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