tobacco-2-2011.jpgThe Times profiles one Audrey Silk of Marine Park, a retired cop who grows her own tobacco at home and is “the founder of New York City Clash (Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment), a smokers’ rights group.” Although growing your own tobacco for personal consumption is legal, Silk “said that she worried that antismoking advocates and the Bloomberg administration, which pushed to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, would make homegrown tobacco their next target. ‘We fear that the antismokers are so hysterical that if they start finding that people are doing this, they would craft a law to make it illegal,’ Ms. Silk said. ‘I’m waiting for the black helicopters to start flying over my yard.'” Meanwhile, the owner of the Mississippi-based company that provides Silk with seeds “was not surprised to learn that the Golden Seal tobacco had done well in the Brooklyn sunshine” because of the plant’s resiliency.
Now in Brooklyn, Homegrown Tobacco: Local, Rebellious and Tax Free [NY Times]
Photo by Mickki.


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  1. I dislike smoking but if people want to grow the plant and smoke it, they’re welcome to do it out of breathing space.

    The thing is, I’m sure there are many medicinal chemicals from this family of plants but so many people get cancer from chewing or smoking tobacco–and there are many other diseases people wind up with. And then our insurance premiums, Medicare deductions and Medicaid spending all get to reflect this.

    I do love the flowers. They’ve been growing flowering tobaccos at a nearby community garden on Carlton Avenue for years. The flowers are very fragrant in the evening and make strolling by a delight! We grow the same ones at our house upstate. I’ve seen them attract interest night-feeding moths.

    They also had curing tobacco growing at that community garden which one of the gardeners pointed out to me. It must have been for ornamental purposes. It’s interesting that it IS native so it a legitimate northeastern wildflower in one sense. The curing tobacco plant looks awfully gummy and sticky and the flowers aren’t as impressive as the night-blooming types.

  2. Sorry fsrq–I didn’t see your 4:54 comment. It appears that you knew your earlier statement was false all along, so I retract my admonition to think–it wouldn’t do much good.

  3. “TAX-FREE pension”

    Exempt from City and State income tax fsrq, but NOT from Federal income tax, which is much higher. Why not think, or at least check, before making dumb statements?

  4. Minard

    In NYS ONLY GOVERNMENT PENSIONS are fully exempt from State and local taxes – Retirees receiving pensions from NON Government plans can only deduct the 1st 20K of pension income.

    this distinction is simply a perk for Government work.

  5. fsrq, I don’t understand your point. The salaries of civil servants are taxed just like everybody else and they contribute to their pensions in every paycheck just like everybody else. Pensions contributions are made after state and local taxes are taken out (this way the State and City get their tax revenue early rather than later) however federal taxes are not deducted. So they will be owed when the pension money is taken out.

  6. Minard – your argument for pension payments to be TAX-FREE (it would be double taxation) would be valid if it applied to private pensions and employee contribution plans – but alas it doesnt so therefore it is a PERK.

  7. “And LOL at that fact that only on B’Stoner can an post about growing your own tobacco turn into a fight over pensions, benefits, unions and government workers!”

    The sad thing is that from my online experiences it is not very uncommon for this to happen, insults and all.

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