Cigarette smuggling

TownHall.com ^ | 8/06/02 | Bruce Bartlett

[Dan from Michigan]

Indiana must be loving this.....

[per loin]

Smuggling is often the only cure for evil laws.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Smuggling is often the only cure for evil laws.

Worked for prohabition didnt it!

[Max McGarrity]

Bad laws deserve the anarchy they create.

[per loin]

Yup. The government has the bad habit of turning decent folk into criminals.

[jumpstartme]

It helps correct government excess. The market always corrects... But, they think that they are immune. NOT!

[jumpstartme]

Of course, you could always grow your own....

[Publius6961]

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

What better example can there be?
Call something "legal" but tax it into disuse.

Life imitates satire?
Not funny.

If there is any "equal protection" clause in the constitution, it is certainly easily ignored.
What will be next?

[weegee]

Organized crime is going to ply some sort of trade, whether it be securing "influence" in governement and contracts, prostitutes, murders, illicit merchandise, gambling, etc. If a market exists, they'll meet it for a price.

Here in Houston, the jail has a no smoking policy among the prisoners. Guards still sell inmates tobacco cigarettes but jail officials think that the smoking policy should remain. The justification is that they know guards are going to provide contraband. If tobacco is illegal, the guards face simple punishments. If tobacco is legal, some guards will be providing other drugs and face jailtime themselves if they are caught.

I've stated that the crowd that says "legalize drugs and then tax the hell out of them" will just be shifting drug control from the DEA to the FDA and ATF regulatory agencies. Meanwhile, organized crime will still have many avenues for procuring dollars.

[SheLion]

Speaking of BLOOMBERG!

What a hypocrite!

[Fraulein]

Organized crime is none other than the government, extorting money from smoker's by force. And where has all that tax revenue gone?

[Madame de Winter]

Tax it into disuse? I don't think so. Remember the Whiskey Rebellion of a couple hundred years ago?

Didn't moonshine really make Burt Reynold's career as a fast driving actor?

[blondee123]

Thus, the anti-smoking crowd hopes to achieve through the back door what it cannot achieve through the front: raising taxes to such a level that tobacco effectively is an illegal product. It won't stop people from smoking, just ensure that only smugglers make any money from it.

You betcha!!

[SheLion]

It is a shame that exorbitant cigarette taxes are creating a new class of criminals for those looking for a reasonably priced product. Smoking is already a highly restricted activity to reduce harm to non-smokers, but that's just not enough for some do-gooders....

It seems to me that the state is not in the least bit interested in the public-health aspects the tax has promoted. Have we seen an overall decrease in teen smoking? Or has anyone quit for good because of the tax? Where are those numbers? Seems to me that the only numbers published are those that have to do with the decrease in retail sales of tobacco and how the state is looking to spend more money to catch the cigarette bootleggers.

John Vawter, Port Orchard said "One thing is for certain, we will get taxed in some other way to make up for this shortfall!"

[brat]

If I lived in those locales, I'd volunteer to drive the van! Use yesmoke.com.....CHEAP major brand cigarettes, no shipping and avoid paying the Tyrannical Government anything at all! Pass it along to your addy book. Let's show the gov we've had enough. Everyone knows someone who smokes...let them know!

[Lewite]

Sounds like smokers are a bunch of un-lawful dopers!

[metesky]

Smuggling is as American as apple pie and has a history extending back to Colonial times.

Maine has a long tradition of smuggling that continued right through the Civil War.

[kattracks]

"When they did a similar gigantic tax in Canada in 1992-93, they created a $1 billion smuggling industry," Lipsky pointed out the day before the tax took effect. "Two years later, they repealed the tax."

STARTLING SMOKE $IGNALS

[Wolfie]

"Smugglers are my heros"
-Walter Williams