[Jan Fisher]

The government had our best interests at heart when they increased packets of cigarettes.

The plan was to price them so highly people would be encouraged to give up, and that has largely worked.

However, the astonishing cost – up to $30 a packet – has also fuelled a flourishing black market and criminal activity.

You’d have to be living under a rock not to notice the rising incidence of smoke shops being hit by arson. It’s the result of rival gangs trying to claim territory by forcing retailers to sell their product or else. The ‘or else’ in this situation is arson.

And recently an illegal tobacco crop worth an estimated $20 million was discovered in NSW.

With those sorts of figures, it’s no wonder organised crime is operating in the sphere.

So what’s the answer? Probably to cut off demand, so less people smoking. But putting the price up will only encourage more illegal activity.

What would you do?

[David Ryder]

Most people I know who still smoke tobacco grow and cure their own which is easy to do, but also there is a flourishing black market where chop chop sells for about half the price of taxed tobacco. As it costs so little to produce here or smuggle in the sellers are making big tax free profits.
If the tobacco tax was not so high then more people may buy legal tobacco and the government would collect some tax instead of none. Tobacco use is not declining only legal sales are.

[Author]

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