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Pipe and cigar Trade/Piff Poll

Should B&B allow members to trade/PIF Pipe tobacco or cigars?

  • I am in favor of tobacco trades/PIFs for pipe and cigar as outlined below and may participate.

  • I wouldn't want to participate but I do not object to allowing others to trade/PIF as described.

  • I would not participate and I do object to tobacco trades/PIFs for pipe and cigar as outlined below.


Results are only viewable after voting.
I have no problem with it. I enjoy trading cigars but haven't done so in years because I'm no longer active on cigar forums. There are many gents here that I would enjoy the opportunity to trade and share cigars with. Whatever rules/guidelines work best for B&B, I'm sure most of us will have no issue with.
 
I say yes. I don't have an issue with it, as long as the rules are clear and clearly enforced. As for cluttering up the BST, steps have been taken to ensure that doesn't happen.
 
Is there a definition of "immediate personal use only" being tossed around??

Say someone had 150 sticks that they would be willing to trade (what is that $300-1500 in cigars).

Would that be outside the allowed terms?
 
Let me preface that I love a good cigar and have been known to smoke a few here and there : ). However, my vote would be no.

I am not a lawyer and I don’t know what the laws would be concerning the “trade or sale” in Cali. I know there would be issues cross-border though. Heck, I think even buying smokes in one state to smoke in another is against the law.

This is a product that is highly regulated. Moreover, the Surgeon General advises against it and that could lead to image problems. Trade in a product known to cause cancer is a far cry from trade ingrooming products. As for age – well razors are not to be sold to anyone under 18 either.

Another issue I see is the heartache. You can take a picture of a cigar all you want, but these things don’t “travel well.” Even if you stated explicitly that you should keep your cigar in your humidor for three weeks after receiving it, one knows that will probably not happen and the next thing you know… you feel robbed smoking a stick that is either so moist or dry – well, you get it.

I want there to be a section here for it – truly Ido!! But I would hate to see it harm or cause undue focus by those who have it in for smoking. I guess the question is what’s B&B’s mandate and core need/desires. I hope there is a member who’s a federal attorney that can “pipe” in lol.
 
I could care less as long as all trades and pifs are done inside the Brown Leaf forum. Certainly don't want to see any smoking related products start showing up on the regular B/S/T. Pipes and humidors already show up from time to time on the B/S/T, and that's a slippery slope. Just give them their own spot to buy, sell and trade like the coffee/tea folks have.


I have no moral problem whatsoever with tobacco products.

+1 here.
I think the inclusion of the WTB posts from the former sub section into the main BST area is already not helping. I liked the seperate sections better.
 
Let me preface that I love a good cigar and have been known to smoke a few here and there : ). However, my vote would be no.

I am not a lawyer and I don’t know what the laws would be concerning the “trade or sale” in Cali. I know there would be issues cross-border though. Heck, I think even buying smokes in one state to smoke in another is against the law.

This is a product that is highly regulated. Moreover, the Surgeon General advises against it and that could lead to image problems. Trade in a product known to cause cancer is a far cry from trade ingrooming products. As for age – well razors are not to be sold to anyone under 18 either.

Another issue I see is the heartache. You can take a picture of a cigar all you want, but these things don’t “travel well.” Even if you stated explicitly that you should keep your cigar in your humidor for three weeks after receiving it, one knows that will probably not happen and the next thing you know… you feel robbed smoking a stick that is either so moist or dry – well, you get it.

I want there to be a section here for it – truly Ido!! But I would hate to see it harm or cause undue focus by those who have it in for smoking. I guess the question is what’s B&B’s mandate and core need/desires. I hope there is a member who’s a federal attorney that can “pipe” in lol.
If you don't want participate then don't participate, but why would you vote against letting others participate, nobody is selling anything and especially not to minors, don't impose your values on me.
 
The point of the poll is to get all opinions. Earcutter, as well as others, raises important issues for consideration and all opinions are welcome.
 
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I think age verification and not violating federal commerce and tax laws are pretty valid concerns.

And to restate my position, I am all for the ability to trade/PIF these items - so long as we can be guaranteed that we're following existing laws.
 

Commander Quan

Commander Yellow Pantyhose
I'm going to take my STEW hat off for a moment.

I think that things were just fine the way they were with the occasional sale of a pipe or humidor in the B/S/T and trades for small amounts of tobacco happening inside the subforum. I don't think that it is necessary to use the B/S/T to trade what usually amount to a couple blade packs worth of tobacco, and that the person who initiates that trade is then limited from posting a WTB, WTS, or WTT for another 14 days. I sympathies with the people that don't want to see multiple post about pipe tobacco, cigars, and snuff in the general B/S/T, that was the reason why these threads were moved to their own sub forum in the first place.

I am also wondering if any activities like the Secret Santa Exchange need to be initiated inside the B/S/T since we're trading, That would turn the whole thing into a cluster real quick.

I understand the desire to streamline all the exchanges into one area, but what we were doing was working. As far as any legal issues, I only know of one state where it is illegal to ship tobacco to, and that is tobacco that is specifically purchased through mail order, basically this state wants to know that if you are spending money on tobacco they are getting their cut.

Long story short my vote is to not change anything.
 
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While it certainly doesn't seem to be the popular opinion, I'm going to come out and say I agree with Earcutter here. This is NOT the same thing as trading pens, soaps, or even clothing. I'm most certainly not saying that anybody here of proper age in their country doesn't have a right to smoke a cigar or pipe whenever they want, but that's not really the issue here. I think this could potentially open B&B up to a degree of scrutiny it does not need. Again, we're not talking about razors and coffee. At least here in the US (where B&B is headquartered), tobacco is a highly contentious object. I don't even want to think about what could happen if tobacco gets sold to somebody underage. And just how is B&B supposed to police this? Is it really worth our mods efforts? It's nice to say that everyone would act gentlemanly, but I can only imagine the stories the mods/stewards/etc. could entertain us with of behavior on what we have right now.

At the end of the day, I just don't think its worth it. I'm voting no.
 
I'm glad I held off on voting as I'm now catching the issues with this. To summarize what I've picked out as questions or points of contention


Legal Issues
- Minors - How would B&B regulate who's trading and would B&B have to?
- What laws apply to whom and when/how?
- What about selling/trading intra-state or inter-state? What laws apply and are some states different?
- What about trading between countries? Would it remain USA only?

Moral/Image Issues
- Tobacco is known as a carcinogen and is generally a hot-button issue. Could this jeopardize B&B 'morals' or image?
- Does promoting tobacco trade encourage minors? Keeping it walled off in a separate forum forces minors to hunt it down; this could put it right in front of them unless the BL tag was hidden by default (this may be a good solution to most problems if technically possible)?

I'm sure there are more issues.


Resulting suggestion / question:
Can items with the BL tag be hidden by default in the BST? This could be especially handy if a user could set a default set of tags to filter in/out each time they visit the BST. BL tagged items could be off by default. I think this could satisfy most everyone.
 

Commander Quan

Commander Yellow Pantyhose
At least here in the US (where B&B is headquartered), tobacco is a highly contentious object. I don't even want to think about what could happen if tobacco gets sold to somebody underage. And just how is B&B supposed to police this? Is it really worth our mods efforts?

No one has proposed the selling of tobacco here, in fact
"There will be NO direct sales of tobacco of any kind. There will be NO trading of cigarettes or cigarette making supplies.

This goes a long way to prevent someone that is underage from getting tobacco, because they would already have to have something that someone else wants to trade for. Sure, someone could say that they want to trade, and then never fulfill their end of the deal, but that's a long shot. If a 16 or 17 year old want to acquire tobacco they are going to use a infinite number of other methods before they; 1. Come to B&B and pretend to be someone they are not. 2. Come across as knowledgeable enough to be able to fool someone who is knowledgeable that they actually have something of value to trade for. 3. Wait for whatever half of the deal they were to receive gets delivered in the mail. Is a fool proof system? No, but it is a pretty good one.

And just so it's clear, this isn't going to be a new policy. Trades have been happening here for the last year. Everyone of the members has conducted themselves in a manor that is inline with everything B&B expects of them.
 
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I see no problem with it. We already had a cigar/pipe tobacco swap not too long ago. Not too different from that right?

I think it should be kept within the BL though.

+1
No objections unless it begins to dominate the BST. Then I think it would need its own sub-forum.
 
Just to clarify things a bit, our research and discussion with the appropriate federal and state agencies show trades and gifts (PIFs to you) to be legal - if that had not been the case we would not be at this stage. However just because a thing is legal does not mean we should do it. The poll is to decide if there is a will among the members for us to proceed with further legal work and policy development. If the membership is opposed we won't force it so every opinion is valuable. This is an opportunity for the membership to have a voice in how policy is shaped.

Derrick is correct in that trades had occurred here without incident. However due to concerns regarding conflict with B&B's current Terms of Use, as well as many of the issues described by others, it was decided to stop trades until we know if we have support from the membership to proceed and have legal issues completely sorted out and by the book.
 
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I think the concerns about the B/S/T being swamped are totally unfounded. The Brown Leaf is a small sub-forum here, much smaller than the Mess Hall (for instance). Our first super-anticipated-had-weeks-to-save-for-it Limited Pipe only sold 25 pieces, for crying out loud!

We Brown Leafers are definitely a minority here, much like the tea obsessives in the Cafe. I can't for the life of me see how allowing this would disrupt the flow of the B/S/T any more than any other item. People are acting like suddenly the forum would be inundated with requests for trades, etc, and it simply won't be the case.
 
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