Tell you what, I saw how fast they grew in a very short time frame and I really thought to myself...now these guys have got something that's going to really take off here...upwardly mobile is a good term...and an understatement IMO too.

The sales of pipe tobacco?...they increased 900% since the SCHIP tax went through...RYO "Cig tobacco"?...sales went down 74% since the same...that's a pretty huge shift. Probably so much that Big tobacco saw the potential and even though it wasn't really cutting into their game in numbers that were significant yet?...they saw the embryonic beginnings of a monster...and they just decided to stomp it out while it was still small enough and still easy enough to do.