Bigger than Ben Hur

Radio NZ reports:

Deakin University associate criminology professor Dr James Martin told RNZ the Australian approach had relied on enforcement to suppress the black market.

“This has been really ineffective,” he said. “We’ve got between 50-60 percent of all tobacco and nearly all vaping products in Australia now come from criminal suppliers, and it’s generated an absolutely black market.

Roughly AU$7 billion {NZ$8.5b) was spent on illicit nicotine products a year, Martin said.

“That’s around 40 percent of entire illicit drug economy, more than cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin combined.”

So in Australia the black market tobacco industry is bigger than cannabis, cocaine and heroin!

And this is what some public health activists would have us become, as they push failed policies.