I saw this on another forum:
ALBANY, N.Y.
-Major credit card companies will no longer handle Internet sales of cigarettes under a nationwide agreement announced Thursday.
The move is aimed at illegal dealers that are trying to avoid sales taxes or sell to underage customers.
The thriving trade of Internet tobacco undercuts local businesses that sell cigarettes and often avoids sales tax for states and cities, allowing smokers to buy cigarettes considerably cheaper online.
The agreement among virtually all credit card companies, state officials from around the country, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is effective immediately.
"The way the system works now, tobacco can get into the hands of minors," said Bob Cooper, spokesman for the Idaho attorney general's office. "And these sales are depriving the states of revenue."
If true, it obviously has nothing to do with health and everything to do with the generation of tax revenues. I don't see credit card companies acting out of altruism so what were they offered (now or for the future) to cooperate?
But the part that is worrying is CONTROL: People work hard for their disposable income, with the diffusion of credit cards today this is a great way to tell people how and when they may and may not spend their money. Today internet tobacco sales tomorrow performance car parts
National Governments are turning the world into a series of ant colonies.