I also see this affecting a disproportionately lower income group of people. Not because they smoke more, but because the Tennessee sales tax hits them the hardest, forcing them to save as much as they can, where they can.

Does this program also include monitoring the Fort Campbell Army Commissary and are Tennessee tagged cars leaving Fort Campbell military base also searched. I seriously doubt it, however excessive cigarettes bought there are just as illegal under Tennessee law.

Next do the search, seizures, and forfeitures of vehicles violate the 4th amendment protections granted by the US Constitution. I feel in this case a court would rule that in fact it did.

We also have constitutional issues under the commerce clause.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, states that Congress has the exclusive authority to manage trade activities between the states and with foreign nations and Indian tribes. Courts and commentators have tended to discuss each of these three areas as a separate power granted to Congress. It is common to see the Commerce Clause referred to as “the Foreign Commerce Clause”, “the Interstate Commerce Clause”, and “the Indian Commerce Clause”, each of which refers to the same single sentence in the constitution that covers all three. – The Wikipedia

Some commerce clause court cases sound like they are very applicable to this situation.

Baldwin v G. A. F. Seelig (1935) invalidated a New York law prohibiting the sale in the state of milk bought outside of New York. New York argued the law was necessary to avoid price competition that would drive dairies into producing less wholesome milk. The Court, more realistically, saw the law as protectionist. Justice Cardozo wrote that when “a state tries to isolate itself economically” it must show an important interest for doing so and that it had no less discriminatory mean open for accomplishing its goal. Cardozo’s test has become the standard test for evaluating state laws that discriminate against out-of-state commerce.

In another New York milk case, H. P. Hood and Sons v Dumond (1949), the Court applied the Baldwin test for protectionist laws to the state’s denial of a license to operate a depot to collect milk for distribution to Boston. The Court saw the license denial as an effort by New York to horde a resource and thereby keep prices for its consumers low.

Edwards v California (1941) considered a challenge to a California law aimed at reducing the influx of dust bowl indigents to the state. The California statute made it a crime to bring into the state any indigent non-resident. Finding people in this case to be “articles of commerce,” the majority found the statute to be a form of unconstitutional discrimination against out-of-state commerce. (Four concurring justices would have preferred to invalidate the law on 14th Amendment privileges and immunities grounds.)

Dean Milk Co. v Madison (1951) deals with discrimination against out-of-state (as well as much in-state) commerce not by a state, but by a city. At issue in the case was a Madison, Wisconsin ordinance that prohibited the sale of milk in Madison that was bottled more than five miles from the city’s center. The ordinance was justified by Madison as necessary to facilitate inspection by city dairy inspectors. Finding the ordinance discriminatory and believing that reasonable non-discriminatory alternatives existed, the Supreme Court invalidated the ordinance despite the fact that a Milwaukee dairy was shut out of town just as much as one from Illinois.

In Hunt v Washington State Apple Ass’n (1977), the Court determined that a North Carolina law that allowed only one grade (the U. S. Dep’t of Agriculture’s grade) to be placed on containers of apples sold in the state. Washington’s State Apple Ass’n contended that the law discriminated against Washington apples which are shipped in containers that include its own tougher state grades. Concluding that a discriminatory effect (not a discriminatory intent) is all that is necessary to trigger the Baldwin test of a significant state interest and no non-discriminatory alternatives available, the Court invalidated North Carolina’s apple-grading law.

- Exploring Constitutional Law by Doug Linder (2007)

So the State of Tennessee should take another look at the program as it is likely to be struck down by the courts, as soon as the first court case hits the judicial dockets.