[4CJ]

"In Victorian England, a popular pastime of the upper classes was to visit the asylums, there to be entertained by the bizarre and desperate behaviors of the inmates."

OK, I'm ready for it. Just allow me to settle my nerves a bit.

But are you sure we'll be safe visiting the Demoncratic National Headquarters?

[AppyPappy]

Trivia: Name the semi-famous professional wrestler reportedly killed for smuggling cigarettes.

[Lysander]

Ah, black markets. The unattended consequences of social engineering by making things evil rather than focusing on actual behaviors of free people.

It is not government's job to engineer society, but in a free society it is government?s job to protect rights.

Now instead of smokers killing themselves (maybe) we have another crime world growing that will make tobacco use effect and hurt us all. The drug warriors just never learn do they?

[AppyPappy]

I'm amazed at the disconnect of people. We will make cigarettes too expensive to buy but never outlaw them.

In NC for years (may still be true) it was against the law for minors to buy cigarettes but possession and use for minors was legal.

[Alberta's Child]

We all know how alcohol Prohibition turned out. And most folks recall a few years back when the Canadian province of Quebec attempted to raise cigarette taxes substantially above those charged in the neighboring American states of New York and Vermont -- whereupon actual gun battles erupted over the loads of smuggled American butts being barged across the normally unguarded St. Lawrence Seaway at night.

It's also worth noting that the government of Quebec (and Ontario as well, if I remember correctly) had to back down and reduce their taxes. Not because of the gun battles or anything of that sort, but because they were actually raising less revenue with the high taxes than they were with the lower taxes.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Profits on a smuggled semi trailer load of cigarettes from a lower-tax jurisdiction are already in the tens of thousands of dollars. When that starts to mount into the hundreds of thousands, make no mistake, gun battles will result.

I'm on the phone making a down payment on an eighteen wheel semi. Anybody feel like picking up a few bucks on the side?