Sneaky Amendment to Senate Highway Bill Destroys Mom & Pop Tobacco Shops

Big Tobacco is doing it again. It was passed without notice by sneaking it into a completely unrelated Bill. Altria, the distributor for big tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds spent more than $11 million dollars getting one tiny little paragraph inserted into a 5600 page amendment to a Senate Highway Bill. Only they and their Senate cronies even knew it was there. No hearings. No notice. No opportunity to be heard. No defense. No warning. The Bill reclassifies small tobacco shops as "manufacturers" and subjects them, and their customers to huge tax increases and regulations, and elminates a more than 200 year old federal exemption for rolling your own cigarettes. We have until April 22 to get more than 25,000 signatures. Please support your local mom and pop shops over big tobacco. This bill will shut down thousands and thousands of small businesses all over America and throw thousands more out of work.