Dear Source:
I have read with great interest the stories in The Source regarding the duty free status of cigarettes in the Virgin Islands.
Let me quote here from the first story, DUTY-FREE CIGARETTES A THING OF
THE PAST, "the exemptions translate to a savings of about $8 a carton, a difference that makes it easy for V.I. retailers to give tourists a bargain. The territory long ago developed a reputation as a good place to shop for cigarettes."
In case anyone has not been paying attention to the news recently, both locally and nationally, we, as a nation, have gone after the tobacco companies to recover the medical costs of treating the millions of people affected by tobacco.
We cannot bring back the dead, restore the lungs of people who struggle for every breath or dry the tears of a wife, husband or child who lost the most important person in their life. We can, however, use what we have learned to support those who are trying to quit and restrict advertising the "cancer stick."
Locally, we are discussing, often very heatedly, what to do the funds from the settlement with the tobacco companies. Let’s step back from that for a moment and look at how we are contributing to the problem.
We have a reputation as a good place to shop for cigarettes. Our delegate to Congress is going to the White House (CHRISTENSEN WILL TALK TOBACCO AT WHITE HOUSE) to try and have the duty free status reinstituted and our governor has written to the director of the U.S. Customs Service.
I will be totally honest here, I never really though about it. I knew cigarettes were cheap, visitors made a point of purchasing numerous cartons. But today as I read the second story the little bulb went on in my brain. We make, as the story pointed out, possibilly as much as $20 million a year by pushing a product we know can and will result in the long-term suffering and death of too many people.
Maybe we don’t want the duty free status on cigarettes. I know we are in a financial crisis but at what price comes our salvation?
Liz Goggins
St. Croix
