{"id":20071,"date":"2010-08-10T12:24:57","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T16:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=20071"},"modified":"2010-08-10T12:29:06","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T16:29:06","slug":"new-law-forbids-mailing-cigarettes-to-the-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=20071","title":{"rendered":"New law forbids mailing cigarettes to the troops"},"content":{"rendered":"

The was a law that took effect June 29th that forbid mailing cigarettes in the US Postal System in order to prevent smuggling smokes through the mail It’s had the effect of preventing folks from sending tobacco products to troops in war zones, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009 quietly took effect June 29. It cut off those care packages by effectively requiring that tobacco be sent with one particular kind of U.S. Postal Service shipping that requires a signature for delivery but does not deliver to most overseas military addresses.<\/p>\n

April Woods, the 26-year-old wife of a Fort Campbell soldier in Afghanistan, used to regularly send him packages of snacks, drink mixes, pictures and cartons of his favorite variety of Marlboros.<\/p>\n

“I would hope that they would change it. It’s just ridiculous that they take so much away from our soldiers,” Woods said<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was talk about banning smoking in the military a year ago<\/a>, and it looks like they found a way to enact it. Of course, there won’t be a shortage for the REMFs who get to go to the PX every day, but the troops in the field, you know, the guys who need the calming effect of a good smoke, who’ll suffer.<\/p>\n

My mother and my wife sent me cigarettes and just getting the cartons of Old Golds had a satisfying effect. I sent my son La Gloria Cubanas while he was in Afghanistan and he smoked them on the roof of his hospital at night with his buddies after grueling days in the operating room.<\/p>\n

Lynn Becker, a spokeswoman for the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the law did not intend to restrict mailing tobacco to soldiers.<\/p>\n

“Sen. Kohl’s counsel is working with the legal office at USPS to determine whether there is an alternative to Express Mail that could be used to reach troops overseas,” Becker said. “He’s also working on a legislative fix to ensure that service members overseas can receive care packages that include tobacco products.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, he could have tried to fix the law before it became a problem, but that would be proactive, wouldn’t it?<\/p>\n

COB6 and I ran out of cigarettes while we were deep inside Iraq, a two-day drive in a Bradley from the nearest PX – we were the meanest bunch of SOBs in Southwest Asia. Our company XO had to slip back to Saudi Arabia in a M113 to settle us down – a four-day drive there and back.<\/p>\n

I pity the Taliban unit that decides to attack some soldiers who’ve run out of cigarettes. There won’t be any prisoners. Can anyone tell me how many soldiers in combat have died from smoking?<\/p>\n

Thanks to Just A Grunt for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The was a law that took effect June 29th that forbid mailing cigarettes in the US … New law forbids mailing cigarettes to the troops<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}