Posted on 01/12/2015 10:29:17 AM PST by not2be4gotten.com
Each Serbian smokes, on average, around half a pack of cigarettes every day.
Basically, everybody smokes in Serbia and we can see this, since we are living here.
A pack of L&M cigarettes is around $1.70. Marlboros, around $2.00 USD (USD = United States Dollars).
That is versus the $9.00 for a pack of smokes in France.
So you can fill the trunk of your car with cigs, in Serbia, drive to France and make a nice living selling cigs on the streets (Metro stations) of Paris, there.
We have seen this and it is all economics 101.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption_per_capita
This is a classic case of the politicians in France creating a huge amount of crimes/criminals and a vibrant black market.
As long as the police don't choke you to death for it.
As long as you don’t resist arrest, weigh 450lbs, have a heart condition and asthma, you should be fine.
When I got into Sarajevo right after the siege was broken, the city fathers were proudest of the fact that their cigarette factory continued to produce throughout the 1000 day siege. They presented us with packs of cigarettes to prove their claim. I still have mine somewhere.
Smoking is mandatory in the Balkans, I think.
Please stop perpetuating that lie. That individual was a fatal coronary waiting to happen, not choked to death. A < /sarc > tag might have helped!
Don’t try that in NYC.
Why euros are not fat. They smoke.
You could get rich selling loosies in NYC!
Back before all our tobacco sales went to contract
with companies there used to be groups of Japanese buyers
come to our town after our Burley.
Those Asians are pretty big smokers too.
When I was a young E-3 stationed in Italy 50 years ago, we saved up our cigarette ration “punches,” sought out comrades who didn’t smoke and got their “punches,” and headed out to Naples to flog the cigarettes to street thugs and then engage in bacchanalia. ((Punches=cashier “punched” one’s cigarette ration card.))
Price of tobacco is low in Serbia due to government attempts to break the Serbian mafia’s control of the tobacco smuggling after the breakup of Yugoslavia. So many Serbian politicians’ were either on the take or afraid of the mafia during Tadic’s presidency they couldn’t find the will to take on the problem, so the solution was to simply remove all profit from the market, hence cheapest cigs in most of Europe.
Grew up with a guy who’s family fled Bosnia before the war, family owned a substantial legitimate tobacco distribution warehouse/distro company, when father/uncle were late with bribe money, mafia burned down warehouse, all trucks, uncle’s house, killed an elderly relative who tried to stop the house burning, and told family they had 24 hours to leave country. Family went from stable upper middle class to penniless immigrants in New Jersey over course of 3 weeks. He told me the mafia systematically did the same before the civil war to every Soviet-era distribution/warehouse owner that didn’t surrender their warehouses.
#je suis erique garnier!
Greedy governments make their own crime.
Last year at the duty-free port in Bahrain, Marlboros were sold in packages of 3 cartons for $57, up from $10/Carton when I last visited the Middle East in 2007. When I was in England in 2012, I recall Marlboros costing about 7.5 GBP a pack, the most I've ever paid for cigarettes.
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