RedImperator wrote:You joke, but this is becoming an industry in the Northeast. I have no dobut in my mind as we speak there are cars with trunkloads of untaxed Delaware cigarettes on their way up the Jersey Turnpike.
And why is that? Because the dumb as fuck legislature in NY tries to
regulate cigarettes with outrageous taxes
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
[img=right]http://hem.bredband.net/b217293/warsaban.gif[/img] "Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" -Epicurus
Fear is the mother of all gods.
Nature does all things spontaneously, by herself, without the meddling of the gods. -Lucretius
I don't know why is everyone worked up about it, it's actually pretty simple:
When a (recreational) product is not physically addictive, high prices will generate a decrease in demand. If the product is an addictive substance, a high price will result in the inability to get the product but it will not decrease the "need" for it, so people will try to get them by any means necessary (black markets, for instance).
Let's try candy, as an example: a lot of people love candy, it probably gives them a lot of pleasure, and all that. If suddenly a candybar costed $100, most people would simply stop buying candy, and in the process they'll start losing all that butt lard they've accumulated over the years, and will eventually forget about candybars. Not a lot of people will assault convenience stores to steal candybars, because it's doubtful that you'll be able to send them at any considerable fraction of that price, because nobody needs a "fix" of candy.
But try the same with liquors, cigars and other hard drugs, and you get something I remember called an "inflexible economy thingy" or such, that no matter the price people will want it anyway. And then you get people robbing stores. These people would fall into two groups: cigarette junkies (that are so desperate that they'll rob a store - maybe a small group since most addicts would rather find a less violent way to get them) and those who profit from other peoples' addictions.
OBVIOUSLY there are people who just rob stores to get the CASH in the money box. And there will always be, cigars or no cigars. But we're talking about an increase here. And numbers don't lie, unless they want to get you into bed.
