Taxes & Quasi Prohibition Leads to Smuggling & Organized Crime? Huh!

[John Stark]

Opinion | Taxes Have Made New York Into an Empire of Cigarette Smuggling

Hochul’s plan to raise the levy by $1 a pack will make the problem worse and do nothing to deter smoking.

www.wsj.com

I am not an advocate for legalizing hard drugs like crack/cocaine, meth, heroine, fentanyl, and so on. The stuff is poison. Supposedly we have an FDA and consumer protections and so on, such that people can't be poisoned to death, quickly or slowly, by lethal chemical and pharmaceutical products sold on the open market.

However, I'm also painfully aware that the Prohibition against these drugs has done nothing but create massive black markets and organized criminal cartels, along with all of the attendant bribery and corruption of public officials and officers, and has had a terribly corrosive effect upon our nation and its culture.

That being said, we're talking about a legal product here: tobacco.

Its been legal here since before the nation was founded, and has been a staple US crop for centuries. Its deleterious to the people who use it, usage comes with real health care costs that go beyond the user, and so on. Still, its a legal product. I understand that cigarette smuggling is the natural direction a market is going to take in a situation like this, but GEEZ.

I don't think the real nub of this article is simply the fact that NY doesn't know how to govern itself wisely.

My read on something like this is that the black market for this legal product is growing so large because people in power want it to grow, and are making bank on it on the sly. Cui Bono eh? Who benefits? Along with Quid Quo Pro. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Who in the power structure of NY government, business, and finance, is getting their skim from the smuggling of a legal product?

If you know there will be an illegal market along with the legal market, why not buy into that, suborn it, control it, and profit from it? Two birds, one stone, control of the legitimate and illegitimate markets. THAT is a monopoly on business on steroids.

These are the questions, on a whole host of topics, that we must get answers to if this state is ever going to rejoin the United States, instead of being a rogue state that is in flagrant violation of the law. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The scope of corruption here in NY is not beyond my imagination, but I'm afraid it is beyond my imagination how it could ever be fixed at this point without extreme prejudice.

 

[Saltwater60]

Legal items have black markets becuase of taxes and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Illegal weed will be cheaper after NYS is done taxing it and regulating it. The black market where weed is legal is booming and the states never make what they project.

 

[spat]

Opinion | Taxes Have Made New York Into an Empire of Cigarette Smuggling

Hochul’s plan to raise the levy by $1 a pack will make the problem worse and do nothing to deter smoking.

www.wsj.com

I am not an advocate for legalizing hard drugs like crack/cocaine, meth, heroine, fentanyl, and so on. The stuff is poison. Supposedly we have an FDA and consumer protections and so on, such that people can't be poisoned to death, quickly or slowly, by lethal chemical and pharmaceutical products sold on the open market.

However, I'm also painfully aware that the Prohibition against these drugs has done nothing but create massive black markets and organized criminal cartels, along with all of the attendant bribery and corruption of public officials and officers, and has had a terribly corrosive effect upon our nation and its culture.

That being said, we're talking about a legal product here: tobacco.

Its been legal here since before the nation was founded, and has been a staple US crop for centuries. Its deleterious to the people who use it, usage comes with real health care costs that go beyond the user, and so on. Still, its a legal product. I understand that cigarette smuggling is the natural direction a market is going to take in a situation like this, but GEEZ.

I don't think the real nub of this article is simply the fact that NY doesn't know how to govern itself wisely.

My read on something like this is that the black market for this legal product is growing so large because people in power want it to grow, and are making bank on it on the sly. Cui Bono eh? Who benefits? Along with Quid Quo Pro. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Who in the power structure of NY government, business, and finance, is getting their skim from the smuggling of a legal product?

If you know there will be an illegal market along with the legal market, why not buy into that, suborn it, control it, and profit from it? Two birds, one stone, control of the legitimate and illegitimate markets. THAT is a monopoly on business on steroids.

These are the questions, on a whole host of topics, that we must get answers to if this state is ever going to rejoin the United States, instead of being a rogue state that is in flagrant violation of the law. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The scope of corruption here in NY is not beyond my imagination, but I'm afraid it is beyond my imagination how it could ever be fixed at this point without extreme prejudice.

The CIA is one of the major driving forces in the war on drugs.

Not to eliminate drugs, but to eliminate their competitors.

They will fight tooth and nail against legalization of hard drugs, because then their budget would actually have to go through congress.

As it is, I bet it's barely their administrative budget that does.

 

[Grimscale]

Legal items have black markets becuase of taxes and I wholeheartedly agree with that. Illegal weed will be cheaper after NYS is done taxing it and regulating it. The black market where weed is legal is booming and the states never make what they project.

Just look at what is starting with ammo.
A perfectly legal product being over taxed and over regulated.
So people will go "elsewhere" to acquire it, and NYS will not see one dime of tax money from it.

 

[tirwin1]

Opinion | Taxes Have Made New York Into an Empire of Cigarette Smuggling

Hochul’s plan to raise the levy by $1 a pack will make the problem worse and do nothing to deter smoking.

www.wsj.com

I am not an advocate for legalizing hard drugs like crack/cocaine, meth, heroine, fentanyl, and so on. The stuff is poison. Supposedly we have an FDA and consumer protections and so on, such that people can't be poisoned to death, quickly or slowly, by lethal chemical and pharmaceutical products sold on the open market.

However, I'm also painfully aware that the Prohibition against these drugs has done nothing but create massive black markets and organized criminal cartels, along with all of the attendant bribery and corruption of public officials and officers, and has had a terribly corrosive effect upon our nation and its culture.

That being said, we're talking about a legal product here: tobacco.

Its been legal here since before the nation was founded, and has been a staple US crop for centuries. Its deleterious to the people who use it, usage comes with real health care costs that go beyond the user, and so on. Still, its a legal product. I understand that cigarette smuggling is the natural direction a market is going to take in a situation like this, but GEEZ.

I don't think the real nub of this article is simply the fact that NY doesn't know how to govern itself wisely.

My read on something like this is that the black market for this legal product is growing so large because people in power want it to grow, and are making bank on it on the sly. Cui Bono eh? Who benefits? Along with Quid Quo Pro. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

Who in the power structure of NY government, business, and finance, is getting their skim from the smuggling of a legal product?

If you know there will be an illegal market along with the legal market, why not buy into that, suborn it, control it, and profit from it? Two birds, one stone, control of the legitimate and illegitimate markets. THAT is a monopoly on business on steroids.

These are the questions, on a whole host of topics, that we must get answers to if this state is ever going to rejoin the United States, instead of being a rogue state that is in flagrant violation of the law. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The scope of corruption here in NY is not beyond my imagination, but I'm afraid it is beyond my imagination how it could ever be fixed at this point without extreme prejudice.

I have a relative that used to work for the NY state police. He said they spent quite a bit of time going after illegal cigarette shipments. He said it was all about the lost tax revenue. So another impact of this stupid law is the stupid re-allocation of crime fighting resources for something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.