>>1012107I see you're not familiar with New Zealand's tax rate for tobacco.
It's now $1051.83NZ per kilo of tobacco content, and the rate increases annually.
So your average 50 gram tin of imported pipe tobacco that costs you $15-20 in America would otherwise cost NZers $40NZ or so due to shipping it halfway around the world. Now thanks to the taxes they have to pay, it shoots up to $90NZ+.
Per 50g tin.
And because it's a tax on tobacco content, bulk buying doesn't help you either.
Meanwhile, a single pack of 1000 tobacco seeds-which will produce more than enough to supply two chainsmokers for a full year (3-4 if you're good at growing it and/or not as picky about leaf quality)-costs $10NZ. After that, the seeds your own plants will produce makes it free.
At American prices you're right, it makes no sense to grow and age your own. At NZ prices, the taxes make it not just economically viable, but a virtual necessity.
Besides, what do you think your tobacco is, anyway? There are only two real varieties of commercial tobacco-Virginia and Burley. Everything else is just a different cultivar or preparation of one of those two varieties.
You're acting like this is rocket science; it's not. It just isn't cost effective FOR YOU at current market prices. But when NZ manipulates their market so drastically, it becomes cost effective for them again.
And Tobacco is easy as fuck to grow. It doesn't need insecticide, and aging it just means tying the leaves into bundles (with other tobacco leaves) and hanging them up in a shed for a while. If ignorant, illiterate farmers could grow good quality tobacco-and they can-you can do it too. It's not even hard.
