Dear customers and prospective customers from Arizona:

We regret to inform you that effective August 25, 2004 a new law in the State of Arizona has affected UPS delivery of tobacco products in your state. Arizona aims "at curbing mail-order and Internet sales of cigarettes, snuff, chewing tobacco, and certain other tobacco products," (suspiciously excluding pipe tobacco and cigars). Resultantly, ALL future orders to Arizona will be shipped via USPS Priority mail. We regret this unnecessary inconvenience and added expense to our customers, but we have no other alternative.

In addition to alarm over the arbitrary and capricious nature with which this Arizona Senate Bill 1353 so easily discarded American freedoms and liberties, we are also deeply concerned with the apparent arrogant disregard for developing a cooperative solution to important tobacco related issues. The Bill requires that all commercial delivery services collect an adult signature and obtain proof of age verification before delivery. The Bill further demands a valid form of government issued identification. (Since it would appear naive and incredulous that every citizen would have an approved form of government identification, some law abiding and hard working U.S. citizens believe the mail-order prohibition of other tobacco products may also be racist, elitist and discriminatory). The Bill sounds superficially like a noble effort to eliminate youth access, but there is a big problem with implementation. The post office (USPS) has blue, brown, green and pink labels, but none of them require an adult signature. UPS provides a signature confirmation service, and you can add an "adult signature only" warning in the package description section, but nothing is currently in place to formally capture an adult signature. The effect is that a new law has been enacted without the commercial carriers having a mechanism in place for compliance. The Bill has overnight converted numerous business leaders and tens of thousands of hard working citizens into potential criminals from this knee-jerk response of over-regulation and "good intentions." Since UPS does not yet provide an adult signature service, they have been forced to abandon the Arizona market completely. Can any United States citizen imagine a government in this country that would implement a law that is this clearly Un-American? How can our country survive when we have leaders that impose laws without consideration to implementation or unintended consequences? Would a reasonable government in the United States approach business leaders in advance with problems rather that hammering down the heavy hand of a bully with intimidation and oppression? Let us not forget that a very few centuries ago our forefathers moved to America to escape from tyrants in government and freedom from excessive taxation. Many of our parents and grandparents fought and died to protect those same rights, and now we so easily allow them to evaporate as forgotten memories for our children.

Rather than jump to the obvious conclusion that Arizona is governed by a deluded buffoon or an ignorant despot exerting a corrupt abuse of power, we give the Arizona governor the benefit of the doubt and presume that she was misguided by radicals and did not apply critical thinking skills to analysis of this Bill. A problem with government leaders today is that they do not have time to clearly evaluate bills that appear before them. On tobacco issues they are bombarded with misrepresentations from the self-serving monopolists on the right (the original participating manufacturers, actually an oligopoly) and from the fanatical prohibitionists on the left. Democracy used to mean that we democratically elected leaders who, guided by their own personal principals, would make what they thought were the best decisions for the people (even when it meant to support the rights and freedoms of those in the minority). In today's world, democracy seems to mean taking a survey and letting the majority of the people "democratically" vote on a topic. This new form of Democracy sounds more like "mob rule" to me, and when combined with regulatory proliferation (and guided by well intentioned but poorly informed politicians) it composes a frightening picture for our future society.

The extremist prohibitionists can not immediately eliminate all tobacco products from the U.S. so they release their insidious tendrils with vindictive and petulant agendas throughout the local and state governments to collectively impose their will and control over free citizens. There are ways and means to accomplish these same objectives by developing cooperative models and for the States to work with manufacturers, commercial carriers and distributors. The recent example in Arizona has unfortunately not followed the formerly American model of preserving individual rights and liberties, developing cooperative relationships with business, a foundation on consumer education and free volition, and adult responsibility and individual accountability.

It is a sad day indeed and we share your pain as our children inherit yet another pathetic legacy. We suggest you contact every politician available to you and demand a return to the American principles that made our country great. Otherwise, this unfortunate event may be forewarning of continued erosion of our cherished rights and individual responsibilities.