The black market crisis in tobacco

A comprehensive article in the SST about the rise in black market tobacco sales in NZ. Some extracts:

• Organised crime groups are increasingly adding tobacco to drug and money-laundering operations due to high prices
• Dairy owner says his own legitimate cigarette sales have this year dropped from $8,000 a week to $800 a week
• Dairies that sell legal cigarettes are being force to move over to black market sales, otherwise they lose all their customers

This is again a reminder that prohibition doesn’t work, and neither does trying to tax something so much to prohibit it.