Homeland Security and tax happy anti-smokers came together to produce a report that states the obvious.
New York state, according to one of its congressmen, is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in cigarette tax revenue due to Indian reservation sales and the black market. By "losing" he means that as New Yorkers prefer to pay a reasonable price for smokes the state is denied the exorbitant tax it imposed upon cigarettes. The state would be losing nothing if it didn’t impose ridiculously high taxes on tobacco products. This report was specifically released to bolster a scheme to make the Indians include the high state tax on cigarette sales made on the reservation. Currently tribes operating in New York state, as well as most other states, do not include state taxes in the price of the cigarettes they sell on the reservation.
All the verbiage about terrorism is a smoke screen. Obviously when governments enact unreasonable taxes on an easily-transported product shady people will take advantage of politicians’ stupidity. Thus it has always been and always will be. The pea-brained congressman whining about people beating the unjust taxes could do his party, his state and his nation a favor by challenging New York to lower its tax so that law abiding citizens didn’t have to involve themselves in questionable purchases. Any economist worth his salt would do so but in our fuzzy-headed times it’s easier to point the finger at "terrorists" rather than our own home-grown criminals who make up tobacco control.
It may happen that the Indian reservations will be compelled to tack on the high state tax but smuggling, black market sales and, yes, sales that benefit terrorist organizations will not decline in the least. One hole will have been plugged but several more will have been opened. Anti-tobacco doesn’t care about terrorism as is obvious from its own agenda that utilizes many terroristic methods. It cares only about vilifying smokers, raking in its take from the state taxes and furthering the mercantile design of the pharmaceutical industry. To dry up terrorist funding from cigarettes we should take on the thugs that run Tobacco Control.
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