[mylife]

Here, tobacco went from $15 a lb to $63 a lb

[ozark hilljilly]

I run a little country store and the wholesale prices on smokes and Bugler and other loose tobacco has gone thru the roof...yet, curiously the price on chew (’moist snuff’ as they call it in the biz, lol) has dropped to levels I haven’t seen in quite a while!

I don’t get it. My chew customers love it, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
(and just for the record...my cig sales have plummeted since the tax went into place.)

[rockinqsranch]

So I quit after 50 years of smoking. On my second week now without any real problems so far.

NOT going to pay those taxes for Liberal pet projects such as SCHIP.

Taxes should only be for maintenance of minimal Government as outlined in the Constitution, not for special idealogical pet projects of Partisan origin.

[dblshot]

Part of the argument that marijuana is a gateway drug is that it brings people in contact with dealers that sell other drugs. This story points out that black market sales of cigarettes will bring people into contact with those same dealers making tobacco a gateway drug itself.

[woodbutcher1963]

I would think internet cigarette sales would boom.
Also, sales on Indian(native American)reservations would be up huge.
I remember living outside of Buffalo during the 1980’s people would run across Lake Erie and the Niagara River in speed boats smuggling cigarettes into Canada.
If there is a big enough differencein price, someone will figure a way to make a profit.

[Leisler]

The tax has been so successful in bringing revenue, and modifying behaviour, except for the now crime part, that no doubt it will be the patter for gasoline taxes and small car push.

The always come after the smokers first, the Jews of vice users. And, as always, big government has its cheer leading right her on Semi-Free Republic.

Look forward to a 2-4 dollar a gallon Federal tax on gasoline. For the environment. For the children. For ethanol. For mass transit, urban renewal. For your own good.

[teenyelliott]

Gee, who could have possibly seen this coming?

Idiots.

[Just another Joe]

Ahhh yes, tha law of unintended (or intended) consequences.

If the lawmakers would just read the smoking, tobacco tax threads on FR they would already KNOW these things.

We've only been shouting them from the rooftops for years now, more than a decade for some.

[McGruff]

NO! If you smokers quit then the Osama Administration won't make their estimates on how much new revenue will come in from smokers and they will have to raise taxes elsewhere! [/sarcasm but true]