For your list.

I remember a 20/20, 60 Minutes type show on TV a couple of years ago about the black market for smokes in NY. NY Attorney General was one of the main guests on the show. He blamed Virginias low cigarette taxes for the problem. Never a single mention of NYs confiscatory cigarette taxes. And they have only gotten worse since then.

My mother-in-law was down here for Christmas. She left this morning to head home to NY. She had over 100 cartons of cigarettes in her car when she left for family and friends back home.

Take that you cigarette taxing nazis!

Also, many drug dealers are switching to cigarettes because the money is almost as good and the penalties if caught are far less.

The law of supply and demand strikes again...

Wait. You mean you tax a product far above it's cost. And a blackmarket develops. I'm shocked, shocked I say.

Clearly Bloomberg flunked Econ 101.

Gee, I wonder how this happened?

Boob-berg's boondoggle. What did the idiot think would happen when he raised taxes that high? He's lost more in revenue and enforcement than he'd have gained by leaving the tax as it was.

Cigarette smuggling not only can offer fat profit but is less risky than selling illegal drugs, law-enforcement authorities say. Drug trafficking carries sentences ranging from a minimum of five years to a maximum of life in prison. The top sentence for cigarette smuggling is five years. Federal prosecutors don't pursue cases involving fewer than 300 cartons; some van drivers load up exactly 299. Most cigarette smugglers "are not going to do serious jail time," says Edgar Domenech, head of the ATF's New York field office.

Instead of reducing the ridiculous tax rates, the goobermint will just up the mandatory minimum sentence for cigarette smugglers and include property confiscation.

Dear Mr. Bloomberg,

I don't smoke and am against smoking, but I'm glad I live in (relatively) low tax Virginia. Thank you for being a RINO and making NYC an uncompetitive market, thereby giving Virginia this buiness and tax windfall. It almost makes up for all the NYC trash you ship to Virginia.

Sincerely,

A Southerner

"Newports, Newports. Cigarettes, cigarettes," he chants under his breath to passersby. Customers slip him $5 bills, and he gives each a green-and-white pack of smokes.

Newport. Menthol, which quadruples your chances of getting lung cancer. Menthol, which makes your lungs bleed and more susceptible to illnesses such a tuberculosis. Yet it is the cigarrette of choice among blacks. I don't get it. Makes as much sense as them voting in Democrats who then keep their kids in schools from hell with no way out.

Ah,the human desire to self destruct continues!
Of course,all these"bargain hunters"will keep our medical costs soaring for years to come.
Its Ok,tho-they "got over"by not paying taxes!

$7.50 a pack for tailor mades? I'm shocked! That's more than a six-pack of premium beer. If I was a smoker, I'd be rolling my own.

I asked a black co-worker of mine a few years ago why 99% of black people who smoke, smoke Newport. He really didn't have an answer.

I still can't figure it out.

I fully support peoples efforts to evade these confiscatory taxes.

Newport. Menthol, which quadruples your chances of getting lung cancer. Menthol, which makes your lungs bleed and more susceptible to illnesses such a tuberculosis... An will in all honesty end up as the root cause of the next ice age, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.

Good! I love the free black market.

Undermine the parasites, since they've oblivious to other forms of argument. Strangle the cashflow.

If I were a smoker, I'd do my part!

Hey, that sounds like a plan! And the NY State and City gummints didn't see this coming? The tobacconazis don't seem to get it. It's a simple formula: raise taxes out of sight = bring on the illicit sales.

Brain deads like these actually elected Her Heinous to a Senate seat with the full support of NY RAT pols. Could it be that 'bacco criminals are paying for "protection" to RAT pols who need the donations? Just a thought, based upon past NYC history of the RAT gangs who did pay Tammany and other RAT organizations like the police for such protection (as per the book "The Gangs of NYC"--not the movie)

Also, many drug dealers are switching to cigarettes because the money is almost as good and the penalties if caught are far less.
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LOL!
Soon we will have the druggies up in arms against the smokers. I can see the quotes now "They are taking out dealers away from us!"