In perhaps a small and overlooked article on Wednesday, the Supreme Court handed cigar smokers in Maine a victory!

About 5 years ago the state of Maine passed a law that required delivery firms such as FedEx and UPS to only deliver tobacco products shipped by retailers licensed by the state. Moreover, the carrier was allowed to release them only to the addressee and that person had to show identification to prove they were of legal age. The purpose of the 5 year old law was the states effort to restrict the delivery of cigarettes to underage minors. And as always, cigars seem to get lumped into the cigarette vortex when it comes to tobacco laws and restrictions. The law as it turned out became so cumbersome that many internet and mail-order retailers simply refused to ship to the state.

In a rare unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that federal statutes controlling the interstate commerce nationwide trump Maine’s state law on the shipment of tobacco products. Congress passed a law in 1994 that prohibits individual states from interfering in the operations of interstate shipping companies such as UPS and FedEx. The federal law is aimed at protecting ground and air shipping companies from onerous state and local regulations that can be substantially different from state to state.

Nice to finally win one eh?

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