March 31, 2009
"Tobacco Tax's Unintended Consequences"
By Kerry Picket
Patrick Fleenor of Washington D.C.'s Tax Foundation told The Washington Times how non-smokers are affected by the tax hike through ancillary crimes. "The problem historically in how it affects non-smokers," he said, "is that it leads to bootlegging and a lot of ancillary crimes. In the late 1960s New York estimated that about a quarter of all the cigarettes sold in the state were bootlegged and even more than that were in the city (New York City) itself. It put the legitimate cigarette industry under siege ... truck drivers ... people like that. It was difficult to move cigarettes around the city. There were a lot of hijackings - a lot of thefts. Truckers, people who worked in warehouses and all sorts of people like that were adversely affected. It has problems similar to [what you had] with prohibition."