British American Tobacco pays Uganda $24,000,000 in taxes despite illicit cigarette trade persistence. Brazil studies reduction of cigarette tax to curb smuggling. Updated research quantifies relationship between cigarette taxes and smuggling.
Philip Morris social media snafu hurts its image turnaround. Health groups push technology firms to police Philip Morris marketing. Philip Morris going totally smokeless, looks to quit nicotine, executive says. Feel the burn.
Vaping regulations will empower the black market.
£60,000 fine for UK shopkeeper caught with illegal cigarettes. Man caught with 1,500 cartons of cigarettes on I-81, Augusta County, Georgia.
Of course, excise taxes will encourage a black market. However, in the case of nicotine, it is possible, indeed likely, that the black market will wither over time as the overall nicotine addiction rate declines.
A government that taxes goods to the point of creating a black market is entirely complicit in the promotion of lawlessness, IMO. It is crony capitalism at its worst.