

Posted: 7/29/2018 6:44:44 AM EST
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Buttleggers love New York. That’s because it is fertile ground for their illegal activities, since it is now more expensive than ever to buy smokes in the Big Apple. New York has “the worst smuggling problem in America,” said Scott Drenkard, with the Tax Foundation. The least one can now legally pay for a pack in New York City is $13, which was recently raised from $10.50. “For someone who smokes cigarettes regularly, cigarettes [for a month] can cost as much as two months’ worth of groceries, family cell phone bills for a year, or a vacation,” according to Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner. Cigarette taxes and a new minimum price rule have raised the price of a pack by about 200 percent over the past decade. |
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NYC Cigarette smuggling and sales rampant with new taxes... View Quote |
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Up next, NYC bemoans lost cigarette tax income, which they use to fund some health care program and call for new taxes to make up the lost revenue.
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Link Buttleggers love New York. That’s because it is fertile ground for their illegal activities, since it is now more expensive than ever to buy smokes in the Big Apple. New York has “the worst smuggling problem in America,” said Scott Drenkard, with the Tax Foundation. The least one can now legally pay for a pack in New York City is $13, which was recently raised from $10.50. “For someone who smokes cigarettes regularly, cigarettes [for a month] can cost as much as two months’ worth of groceries, family cell phone bills for a year, or a vacation,” according to Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner. Cigarette taxes and a new minimum price rule have raised the price of a pack by about 200 percent over the past decade. View Quote Call me NOT surprised. |
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Sin taxes strike again.
Who would have thunk it? If you raise taxes on a product to an arbitrary punitive point that the price no longer reflects the value the people will simply avoid the taxes. Fucking crazy pills the world must be taking. This shit is like economics 101 level stuff. I got a 5 year old kid that could see that coming. Of course, NY has *always* felt they can overcome human behavior through Draconian enforcement, rather than reasonable laws. I'm sure it'll all work out, in the finish. They'll just choke a few hundred "smugglers" to death and eventually their vision will b realized. |
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Yet GD tells me that if pot is legalized and taxed then all the criminal behavior that surrounds the drug trade will disappear. Call me NOT surprised. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Link Buttleggers love New York. That's because it is fertile ground for their illegal activities, since it is now more expensive than ever to buy smokes in the Big Apple. New York has "the worst smuggling problem in America," said Scott Drenkard, with the Tax Foundation. The least one can now legally pay for a pack in New York City is $13, which was recently raised from $10.50. "For someone who smokes cigarettes regularly, cigarettes [for a month] can cost as much as two months' worth of groceries, family cell phone bills for a year, or a vacation," according to Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner. Cigarette taxes and a new minimum price rule have raised the price of a pack by about 200 percent over the past decade. Call me NOT surprised. I don't think you've seen many proponents of legalization who ALSO champion the cause of levying taxes of multiple hundreds of percent over the value of the product in order to justify allowing it to be sold. You'd have to be a moron to think people are going to put up with that shit. |
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Quoted: Yet GD tells me that if pot is legalized and taxed then all the criminal behavior that surrounds the drug trade will disappear. Call me NOT surprised. View Quote |
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The difference here is New York blatantly creates this black market. If all states legalize pot and one state sets a tax rate 200% higher than others, then yes, you're going to get "criminal" activity. I suppose I used to be a criminal. I lived in NJ and worked in Manhattan. I'm from the Ohio Valley. When I came home, I brought back multiple cartons of cigs for coworkers. That's when they were cheap in NY, like $10 a pack. I'd get cartons in WV for like $30-35. They gave me a few bucks for my gas and trouble. I should have become a full blown Cig dealer. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: Yet GD tells me that if pot is legalized and taxed then all the criminal behavior that surrounds the drug trade will disappear. Call me NOT surprised. |
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Are loosies packs without NY tax stamps or individual cigarettes?
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Quoted: Yeah, there's a risk-reward metric going on here. At a low level of taxation, it simply isn't worth the criminal activity. View Quote |
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Sin taxes strike again. Who would have thunk it? If you raise taxes on a product to an arbitrary punitive point that the price no longer reflects the value the people will simply avoid the taxes. Fucking crazy pills the world must be taking. This shit is like economics 101 level stuff. I got a 5 year old kid that could see that coming. Of course, NY has *always* felt they can overcome human behavior through Draconian enforcement, rather than reasonable laws. I'm sure it'll all work out, in the finish. They'll just choke a few hundred "smugglers" to death and eventually their vision will b realized. View Quote ![]() |
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Right. I think smoking is stupid, but the taxes on cigarettes in some states are fucking disgusting. They only hurt the people that those states pretend to care about. Wealthy people aren't going to be smoking at the same rates and they don't give a fuck how much cigarettes cost if they do. Po folk get fuuuucked by the very people that pretend to want to help them. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted: Yeah, there's a risk-reward metric going on here. At a low level of taxation, it simply isn't worth the criminal activity. You know, moral busybodies playing the nanny state. |
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Well, it worked so well during Prohibition............... ![]() View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Sin taxes strike again. Who would have thunk it? If you raise taxes on a product to an arbitrary punitive point that the price no longer reflects the value the people will simply avoid the taxes. Fucking crazy pills the world must be taking. This shit is like economics 101 level stuff. I got a 5 year old kid that could see that coming. Of course, NY has *always* felt they can overcome human behavior through Draconian enforcement, rather than reasonable laws. I'm sure it'll all work out, in the finish. They'll just choke a few hundred "smugglers" to death and eventually their vision will b realized. ![]() |
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The idea is to make it so expensive that the poor will stop smoking. As if an addict is going to choose fresh kale over their pack of smokes, based solely on tax hikes, and suddenly turn into Warren Buffet. You know, moral busybodies playing the nanny state. View Quote Imma start a side hustle mailing cigs to a few people in new york lol |
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I know what the idea is. Everyone knows for serious addicts it doesn't work. And fuck that shit anyway. Tax them by making them pay more for healthcare. Actual consequences for their actions. Live free and live with the consequences. Imma start a side hustle mailing cigs to a few people in new york lol View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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The idea is to make it so expensive that the poor will stop smoking. As if an addict is going to choose fresh kale over their pack of smokes, based solely on tax hikes, and suddenly turn into Warren Buffet. You know, moral busybodies playing the nanny state. Imma start a side hustle mailing cigs to a few people in new york lol |
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There's precious little criminal activity surrounding virtually ALL other property that ISN'T punitively taxed. I don't think you've seen many proponents of legalization who ALSO champion the cause of levying taxes of multiple hundreds of percent over the value of the product in order to justify allowing it to be sold. You'd have to be a moron to think people are going to put up with that shit. View Quote |
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Purely anecdotal, but a good number of friends who are proponents argue for taxing the shit out of marijuana while using the argument "if it's legalized, the weed dealers (and the associated problems) will go away. They see it as a panacea of taxes paying for everything under the sun. The "loosies" trade is glaring evidence that adding excessive sin taxes to legalized marijuana will likely lead to a similar result. I tried weed in my younger days and didn't like it, but don't give a shit if they legalize it. I just don't want to see excessive sin taxes if/when they do. It won't "fix" anything. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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There's precious little criminal activity surrounding virtually ALL other property that ISN'T punitively taxed. I don't think you've seen many proponents of legalization who ALSO champion the cause of levying taxes of multiple hundreds of percent over the value of the product in order to justify allowing it to be sold. You'd have to be a moron to think people are going to put up with that shit. I should have said "many proponents of legalization with an IQ above their shoe size" instead. |
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Do they come in some sort of box? Seems like they would be easy to crush and hard to transport. Or do you just buy 1 cigarette to smoke it on the spot?
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You say "during prohibition" as if you're not sitting in the middle of one, right now. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Sin taxes strike again. Who would have thunk it? If you raise taxes on a product to an arbitrary punitive point that the price no longer reflects the value the people will simply avoid the taxes. Fucking crazy pills the world must be taking. This shit is like economics 101 level stuff. I got a 5 year old kid that could see that coming. Of course, NY has *always* felt they can overcome human behavior through Draconian enforcement, rather than reasonable laws. I'm sure it'll all work out, in the finish. They'll just choke a few hundred "smugglers" to death and eventually their vision will b realized. ![]() |
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Can we sell them cigarette kits like selling magazines to California? Let them assemble them into a taxed box?
How about cutting 2/3rds of the length off? ![]() |
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Wait, hold up. Are you telling me that crazy high taxes on a high demand product that is easy to acquire and sell illegally, has a large black market? No way. I don't buy it. There has to be another reason.
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This is nothing new. In North Carolina, Highway 301 and now I-95 has been lined with cigarette stores to catch the snowbirds shuttling back and forth between Florida and New York.
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$13! Soon it will be a buck a stick.
I quit smoking a couple years ago, but even then I know some places I could score a pack for 4 bucks, that NY Tax is insane. |
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The article says:
"With already almost the highest cigarette taxes in the nation, New York officials haven’t added more taxes. Instead, they now require sellers raise the minimum price of a pack by $2.50." Where are the taxes higher and why aren't we hearing about that place? Not that I give a shit, tried smoking as a kid(doesn't everyone?) and decided to pass. |
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I used to see it as a rookie walking a footpost on Fulton Street 24 years ago. Guys standing next to their cars with a truck full of cartons they were selling.
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This is one of the reasons they keep wanting to get rid of cash. That way they could eliminate the black market and squeeze people for all the taxes they want.
Black markets are just a sign that the system of above board commerce isn't serving the market. |
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Sin taxes strike again. Who would have thunk it? If you raise taxes on a product to an arbitrary punitive point that the price no longer reflects the value the people will simply avoid the taxes. Fucking crazy pills the world must be taking. This shit is like economics 101 level stuff. I got a 5 year old kid that could see that coming. Of course, NY has *always* felt they can overcome human behavior through Draconian enforcement, rather than reasonable laws. I'm sure it'll all work out, in the finish. They'll just choke a few hundred "smugglers" to death and eventually their vision will b realized. View Quote |
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Cigs should be sold on Amazon for this reason alone. Crush NY sales of cigs and the taxes they collect.
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Quoted: Right. I think smoking is stupid, but the taxes on cigarettes in some states are fucking disgusting. They only hurt the people that those states pretend to care about. Wealthy people aren't going to be smoking at the same rates and they don't give a fuck how much cigarettes cost if they do. Po folk get fuuuucked by the very people that pretend to want to help them. Then they get fucked because they become criminal "buttleggers." View Quote |
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Welcome to.....always. View Quote |
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I'd settle for "pay for their healthcare" but, now we're splitting hairs. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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The idea is to make it so expensive that the poor will stop smoking. As if an addict is going to choose fresh kale over their pack of smokes, based solely on tax hikes, and suddenly turn into Warren Buffet. You know, moral busybodies playing the nanny state. Imma start a side hustle mailing cigs to a few people in new york lol ![]() |
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