I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve complained about artificially high prices subsidizing crime in the context of the war on drugs.
Well, now the same thing seems to be happening with the war on cigarettes. This morning I read about how ridiculously high cigarette taxes are turning cigarettes into ‘Gold Bars’ For Thieves:
Government has helped make cigarettes more valuable by imposing $2 per pack tax
Well doh! An accompanying chart shows that the smuggling rate has quintupled. Not that cigarettes have more inherent value than they did before; they just have more artificial, illegal value than they did before. That’s because consensual buyers remain willing to buy and sellers remain willing to sell — and buy and sell they will. The government is creating lucrative criminal opportunities.
And (as in the case of the War on Drugs), the most lucrative criminal opportunities of all are for those who have the added advantage of being the enforcers. The heroic ATF has somehow managed to “misplace” 420 million cigarettes:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Wednesday.
In one case, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant — even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction.
Nice racket, eh?
As to why ordinary people put up with such government racketeering, and how long they will be willing to put up with it, who knows?
One thing is for sure. We won’t see those who are responsible for creating these criminal opportunities indicted on RICO charges.
Comments
7 responses to “Who are the real criminals?”
>artificially high prices subsidizing crime
About that… Allow me to provide some real numbers. For high quality greenbud I pay $300/oz + $100/5g cannabis extract every 3-4 months. Take the short end of that time span and say $400 / 90 days = $4.50/day to smoke NorCal’s finest. The person I purchase from is known to me, and has a normal day job. The grower who supplies him likewise has no connection to crime aside from having to conduct his business outside the protection of the rule of law.
My point being, they piss away billions in DC and Sacramento fighting this and it’s about the same price per day as alcohol.
Name+address anonymized for obvious reasons 😉
Opponents of the “War of Drugs” always talk about adults and marijuana. But the issue is children and heroin. There will always be some drug and purchaser that people will want outlawed, including people like our blogger and commenter who only smoke marijuana.
In fact, no jurisdiction in the US has legalized even marijuana. In places like Colorado, which pretends to have legalized it, the drug market is fenced about with all sorts of restrictions. And these restrictions themselves create a black market. Europe has pretended to legalize both prostitution and drugs and has black markets (including outright sex slavery) in both.
There are activities, like child prostitution, that society (except Islam) will not tolerate but that some people want, and a black market for these will always exist.
On the plus side, the War on Drugs gives us an excuse to imprison violent, stupid blacks.
Those people who delight in imposing cigarette taxes insist that they do so to DIScourage smoking.
These are the same people who claim that higher taxes and additional taxes will ENcourage economic growth.
Game. Set. Match!
It was the national disgrace of the war on smokers that opened my eyes to the tyranny of the American left, determining my exit from the faction of self-regard twenty-five years ago. They pretended it was a single issue, but it was obvious it was but the third step, after alcohol and drug prohibition, in a long series of depredations upon our rights and liberties. Anyone who approved the persecutions, no matter how benign his personal motives, is responsible for the tyranny we live under today.
[…] Who are the real criminals? […]
Bob S.,
I was under the impression that the purpose of Prohibition was incarcerating violent Italians. You will note that that for some strange reason Italians became a lot less violent once Alcohol Prohibition ended.
Evidently Alcohol Prohibition cured the Italians of their violent tendencies. Once it ended.
[…] Sykes makes this comment to Eric’s Who are the real criminals? Opponents of the “War of Drugs” always talk about adults and marijuana. But the issue is […]