Thread: Legality & Viability of vending "alternative"

I would not like doing business again with the Indonesian customs, after having to pay 24 million to get our 24ft. container cleared which contents were only old household good.
Wish you luck with your future business, as far as I am concerned it is a waspnest.

It looks like the only way to do this would be to find a grower in Bali, purchase the herbs there (or grow them yourself), perhaps make some available in Bali in a form that will fly under the radar and export the rest.

Growing it yourself would be a real headache though I think. You have to have a lot available even when it might not grow. Gotta keep enough in reserve in a warehouse (hopefully not rat infested which would require cleaning the product before trying to package it unless you're one of the Bidi makers in India then you just roll up the rat terds and all)

I was looking at stats concerning tobacco and clove consumption in Indonesia. It turns out most families spend more on tobacco than anything else. Even more than festivals.

The clove cigarettes contain more tar and other nasties than does tobacco. People derive more nicotine from them as well because of the way they're smoked. Rich Chinese hire women and children many of whom are required to roll almost 350 cigarettes an hour by hand for next to nothing.

I think even automated machinese can't compete with that. Maybe they could make more faster, but they probably couldn't make them cheaper. Sale of tobacco is the governments number one source of income in Indonesia.

The Indonesians don't need another addiction to burden their lives with. If you could develop a product that could get people off of tobacco, that would be good for everyone (except the government and the multinationals that want to come in and buy up the existing successful tobacco enterprises).