decriminalizing drugs immedaitely puts “drug lords” in competition with phizer, merc and johnson and johnson.
Bob the drug lord would be out of work immediately, and violent drug crimes would immediately become equal to violent cigarette crimes.
Please reconsider, or perhaps i should say, consider your position.
Also to pitch in here. Im a long time conservative, and i donated to Paul, I’ll be voting for him as well in the primary(Texas)
We won the Iraq war 12 months ago guys. Hanging out there, wearing out our welcome is a waste of life and treasure.
I understand your cynicism, i really do, but if you feel obligated to vote for a small government, free-market, pro-life, liberty first candidate then you really only have one choice.
Let’s just hope all the recreational drug users kill themselves off soon so that they have less chance of polluting future generations of young people.
Smugglers and Thieves Await Passage of California's Prop. 86 Cigarette Tax Hike
Beginning in October 2000, three East County men went on a six-month crime spree, robbing at least 20 gas stations and convenience stores in the San Diego area. Armed with semi-automatic weapons, they burst in, assaulted clerks and customers, and cleaned the stores out of cigarettes.
Why did the thieves take cigarettes and not the Twinkies or the razor blades or just the cash?
The answer, of course, is taxes. Federal and state cigarette tax hikes have turned a pack of cigarettes into a gold mine for criminals, spawning a massive black market that makes it easy for thieves to quickly unload stolen cigarettes for cash.
The San Diego group's luck ran out with an arrest in April 2001, but similar gangs across California and smugglers all over the world are eagerly awaiting a Yes on Proposition 86, which would double, triple or quadruple their profit margins.
In addition to encouraging theft, high cigarette taxes have led to staggering levels of cigarette smuggling into the state and casual tax evasion by consumers. The Board of Equalization has the tough assignment of enforcing cigarette taxes, and it admits that about 300 million untaxed packs are sold in California each year despite requiring elaborately printed tax stamps to be affixed to each pack.
When deciding whether to vote Yes on Proposition 86 to raise the state's cigarette tax from 87 cents to $3.47, the nation's highest rate, Californians should weigh the severe law enforcement problems that come with being the preferred destination of cigarette smugglers.
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