Originally posted by kiwijoe: Just out of curiousity,are you saying its illegal for a US citizen to smoke a Cuban cigar anywhere in the world??
No, it isn't. It's illegal for a U.S. citizen to purchase or acquire a Cuban cigar or any Cuban product anywhere in the world.
Technically, smoking a Cuban cigar IS illegal for a U.S. citizen. To violate the embargo, all one has to do is be in possession of a Cuban cigar. If one is smoking a Cuban cigar, one has to obviously be in possession of a Cuban cigar.
Better beautiful than perfect
Posts: 1257 | Location: AZ | Registered: September 11, 2005
The violation is the expenditure of US funds on items of Cuban origin, and it is assumed that, if you are smoking a Cuban cigar, somewhere, somehow, the funds used to acquire it came from the US, whether as a derivative of travel, hosting, buying dinner, sitting in a pub in London, anything anywhere. The presumption is that, if you have a Cuban cigar, it is contraband.
It's yet another violation to smuggle contraband into the US, or yes, also merely to possess items of Cuban origin for those reasons (unless you can overcome the presumption that it is contraband, i.e., if you acquired the cigar prior to 2004 or so while on a license trip to Cuba where you were allowed to bring $100 worth of items of Cuban origin, and the cigar is from that $100 exemption). You still violate the embargo if you go to Madrid, change your USD for Euros, use the Euros to buy a cigar, never intending to bring it back or keep it on you when you get back to the US, smoke it there and then, and come home with not so much as a remnant of an ash. Naturally, it's very difficult to enforce the embargo in those circumstances, but technically, that is a violation.
Mind you, these are violations even if you think you get around it by holding a dual citizenship - ignorance (no matter how readily apparent...) is NOT a defense.
Even James Suckling, a US Citizen living abroad, would be subject to the 'trading with the enemy act' because he is being paid by a US company to travel to Cuba and smoke Cuban cigars.
I don't know...if you take this a step further, CA sort of incites us to break the law! It's all MARVIN'S fault for exalting the virtues of Cuban cigars, enticing American citizens to travel to Cuba by dangling these carrots in front of us!!
___________________ Santa Cabilla...patron saint of Quericæstan. VIVE COULTER (not Ann)! VIVE CPD! Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go...(Oscar Wilde)
Posts: 10603 | Location: Avenida de las Nalgas, Quericæstan | Registered: May 02, 2002
I don't know...if you take this a step further, CA sort of incites us to break the law! It's all MARVIN'S fault for exalting the virtues of Cuban cigars, enticing American citizens to travel to Cuba by dangling these carrots in front of us!!
CA is allowed to do this by the government on account that they have to send two boxes of Monty #2's, Cohiba Esplididos, or Bolivar coronas to the President, Vice President, and every member of Congress every Christmas. It is really quite simple.
Thanks and Gig'Em.
Posts: 59 | Location: Texas | Registered: May 31, 2009
CA makes political contributions to both parties, invites elected officials to private events, hires hookers for these events, has hidden cameras, and is in possession of dirty pictures of these elected officials caught in the act with these hookers( a la Hugh Hefner)....that's how.
Posts: 1150 | Location: Miramar, La Habana, Cuba | Registered: May 07, 2002
