[Just another Joe]

Bloominidiot Puff!

Of course smoking in NY City has gone down.
Bloominidiot has run all the smokers out of town with his idiocy.

[CasearianDaoist]

They are just lying. We are wating for the first lynching of a smoker here abouts. I mean really, what would you say?

[Just another Joe]

Yep, they've had to go elsewhere to find jobs since bars and restaurants are closing.

[theDentist]

It could also be that a whole lot of people are lying when asked if they still smoke. Sales is the better measure of smoking. 'Course, what'll they do when smoking is completely purged from the city? Stop spending or tax something new???

[thoughtomator]

More likely that more people are evading the higher cigarette tax, and only "official" consumption is lower, blowing the entire premise of the article out of the water.

[kdot]

Social engineering using the tax code...

[antiRepublicrat]

... and in related news, organized crime involving cigarettes -- including hijacking and smuggling -- has gone through the roof, as well as robberies of convenience stores for their cigarettes.

Nice to tell a family store owner "You were robbed and your wife shot because we raised cigarette taxes enough to make such robberies worth the risk."

[TC Rider]

I'd like to know if sales of smokes are down, or if people are just lying to the survey.

They might be afraid of Nanny Bloomberg coming to their house.

[Bella_Bru]

So, if they put the tax there in order to force people to quit, what would they do if most smokers quit? They are already addicted to that tax revenue that is rolling in, I imagine they'd find a new 'sin' to tax.