Yet another anti plan blows up in their face. The ridiculous tax increase on cigarettes was suppose to reduce teenage smoking. As I predicted the excessive taxes brought in the criminal element and like drugs they don’t care who they sell to so instead of reducing teenage smoking it is on the rise.
“Trunks are being opened and 16-year-olds are being handed tobacco and nobody has the political will to do anything about it,” said Dave Bryans, president of the Canadian Convenience Store Association. “It should be a huge concern.”
The association commissioned a study which collected butts outside 155 Ontario and Quebec high schools, and determined 23% of teen smokers in Ottawa, 26% in Ontario and 36% in Quebec are puffing on contraband cigarettes. But the new stamp won’t do anything to stop the “baggies” of smokes being peddled at high schools, malls and flea markets.
Illegally imported from the U.S. and China, contraband smokes are often sold for $1 a pack as opposed to $8 a pack.
“We feel proud that we’re not allowing kids to get these type of products, but everybody around us is ignoring this, so we’ve called on the federal politicians during this election to support a ban to make it illegal for anyone under 19 to possess, consume or purchase tobacco products,” he said.
“It’s almost shocking when you look at some areas.”
The study was done by independent research company Arcus Group. Researchers collected 22,498 cigarette butts from Ontario and Quebec high schools.
They picked up 1,429 butts from 10 Ottawa high schools, 23% of which were illegal.
That’s discouraging, said Chris Wilcox, general manager of Quickie Convenience stores. While government has been “piling on” legislation for legitimate tobacco retailers, kids have been going behind their backs to get them cheap and illegal.
“Despite governments’ best efforts to keep cigarettes out of kids’ hands, kids are getting them easier than ever,” Wilcox said. “They’re attacking the wrong target.”
Filed under: reality check | Tagged: regressive taxation, smoing, smoking ban, taxation without representation, tobacco taxes
And they couldn’t foresee this? Just further proves that the powers that be live in a bubble.e
wow, why don’t we have black market $1/pack cigarettes here in the US? Or do we? I don’t actually smoke cigarettes…
I do not know what the price is; but, there is a lot of blackmarket cigarettes from Indiana being sold in Chicago.
Actually, I make my own cigarettes and they cost me about $1/pack and a little of my time.
[...] the most insidious thing is they have learned nothing from history, specifically the war on drugs. People who sell illegal products whether it be drugs or cigarettes are already breaking the law and… I mean what do they have to lose, it’s not like you can take away their cigarette license. [...]
THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION IS ON THE HORIZON
The words “No Taxation without Representation” began as a slogan in the period 1763-1776 just before the first American Revolution. The slogan summarized the primary grievance of the American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who believed the lack of representation in the British Parliament was an illegal denial of their rights as English citizens. The colonists believed that the laws excessively taxing them for services they did not receive were illegal.
It has become apparent to most Americans that both houses of our Congress, just like the British Parliament of the 1760’s and 1770’s, no longer represents the interests of the American people. Our congress routinely passes legislation that benefits a wide variety of special interest groups at the expense of the average American citizen and taxpayer. Through the use of special interest bribes (I mean campaign contributions), it can now be said that America has the best congress that money can buy.
American taxpayers are seeing their taxes go up at every level of government, oftentimes for services and programs that they do not benefit from, nor approve of. Our local and school taxes are rising at a rate far exceeding any increases in our incomes. The U.S. congress and the Federal Reserve are printing fiat money (backed by nothing) as fast as the printing presses can print it and the American taxpayers are starting to get angry about the increasing burden of taxation placed upon them and they have every right to be angry.
The American taxpayers who live up to their responsibilities and who work hard (often holding two jobs) to pay their bills with less take-home money are:
1. paying for ongoing failed social engineering experiments in housing and education,
2. paying for the funding of anti-American, socialist organizations like LaRaza and ACORN,
3. paying for a variety of services provided to 15 million +/- illegal aliens,
4. paying for the bailout of large international banks,
5. paying for the bailout of Wall Street firms,
6. paying for the bailout of real estate investors and
7. paying for the bailout of people who are unable or unwilling to be responsible adults and who fail to pay their own bills, including their mortgages.
Many American citizens, particularly those who pay taxes, are frustrated by a government that no longer represents them, but rather represents the interests of an oligarchy of about one thousand political and financial elites who exert unconstitutional and illegal control over our government and economy for their personal gain.
The members of this oligarchy are not loyal Americans who have the best interests of the county in mind, but rather they are people who benefit financially or politically by keeping our country in a constant state of war, by dumbing down our education system, by devaluating our currency, by separating us into categories by race and ethnic origin, by drugging 6 million of children with mind altering drugs, by flooding our country with illegal aliens, and by chipping away at our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms and liberties.
I believe that Americans are fast approaching a point of frustration and anger with their own government similar to what the American colonists reached in 1776. They want to take their country and government back from the corrupt political and financial elites who control it. Let’s hope that the second American Revolution that we see on the horizon, is accomplished via the ballot box.
_______________________________________
John Wallace
New York Campaign for Liberty
Chatham, New York
http://www.NYCampaignForLiberty.com