Posted on 02/09/2014 11:00:46 PM PST by Olog-hai
Health officials have begun to predict the end of cigarette smoking in America.
They have long wished for a cigarette-free America, but shied away from calling for smoking rates to fall to zero or near zero by any particular year. The power of tobacco companies and popularity of their products made such a goal seem like a pipe dream.
But a confluence of changes has recently prompted public health leaders to start throwing around phrases like endgame and tobacco-free generation. Now, they talk about the slowly-declining adult smoking rate dropping to 10 percent in the next decade and to 5 percent or lower by 2050. [ ]
Some experts doubt it. As long as cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products are legal, its likely some people will smoke them. Efforts to prohibit them are likely to fail, they say. (Remember Prohibition?)
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Well, there’s also a cigarette “black market” of sorts, where people in high-tax areas buy from states with far lower tobacco taxes, often from “smugglers”. This happens around the world too, especially in Europe. It’s so prevalent that it’s even been nicknamed “buttlegging” (in spite of the sexual overtones) . . .
CT’s spike in taxes will go down once people discover illicit cigarettes.
WORD.
**cigarette smuggling or tax evasion**
My new occupation. Word. ;)
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