Cheap cigarettes here

"Cigarettes are an ideal product for distribution through the Internet," said Ali Davoudi, the founder of esmokes.com and president of the Online Tobacco Retailers Association.
"The average person out there shopping for cigarettes online is your hard-working blue-collar American, looking to save money on a product that, for whatever reason, no matter what you say, is an addictive product," he said. "We're addicted."A lot of money can be saved by shopping for cigarettes online, depending on what state smokers live in. A carton of Marlboro cigarettes can cost up to $37 in some areas of the United States. A carton of Marlboros from yessmoke.com, for example, costs only $15, with shipping and handling included.
Some Web sites, like cigarettesexpress.com, are owned and operated by American Indians. Since the business is located on a reservation, they can sell cigarettes at a lower price.Instead of paying the price for expensive cigarettes at stores, many smokers in Ohio and the rest of the nation are searching for other options to save money on their smokes.
Smokers are fighting back against high taxes on cigarettes by shopping online, which can sometimes offer lower prices because of lower state taxes elsewhere in the country.
Other tobacco companies that sell cigarettes on the Internet are supposed to pay their own state tax on their product. The customer who buys the cigarettes from the Web site is supposed to pay the tax from their own state.
Unfortunately, this is hard to regulate and does not happen most of the time.
"We pay North Carolina and federal excise tax," said Joel Godin, president of Greystone Enterprises, which runs the Web site classacigarettes.com. "It is then up to the customer to contact their state and find out what they are liable for," he said.
One of the concerns lawmakers and politicians have with online selling of cigarettes is the possiblity of selling to minors.

In April, the state of California filed a lawsuit against five online and out-of-state cigarette vendors, claiming the vendors are costing the state $54 million in lost tax revenue. They also alleged that the vendors are selling to minors.
Godin and other vendors said this is not true.
"We have a very stringent age verification system," Godin said. "First, we do not sell to anyone under the age of 21, and we have a national database that verifies names and addresses."
Several other actions have been taken against the online companies that sell cigarettes, including a law in New York that was passed in 2000 that makes it a crime for out-of-state entities to sell cigarettes directly to consumers or to ship them directly to consumers.
The Online Tobacco Retailers Association filed a suit April 17 along with online retailers based in Native American Seneca nation of New York, Kentucky and North Carolina to have the law overturned. The association's position is that the law is unconstitutional.Philip Morris, the company that controls 62 percent of the U.S. name-brand cigarette market, had filed 18 lawsuits against those selling cigarettes on the Internet since March.
Although it seems like everyone is taking advantage of this evasion of taxes to receive their cigarettes, those buying online still represent a small percentage of smokers. This might have to do with consumers not being able to afford cigarette in bulk quantities, choosing instead to buy by the pack.
Don Frame, a 21-year-old Columbus, Ohio, resident, said he has considered buying cigarettes online.

"I've thought about it, but I'd just as soon go to the gas station," Frame said.
Frame, who has been a smoker for three years, said buying cartons is not always an economically viable option and that buying locally is easier for him.
"They may be cheaper, but it's all about easy access," he said.