From: KiwiBlog
by David Farrar
The Herald reports:
Police need to record the number of robberies in which tobacco is taken, the Act Party says.
The call comes after a Christchurch dairy was on the weekend robbed for the eighth time in seven months.
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This is a good lesson in unforeseen consequences. There is little doubt that increasing the excise tax on tobacco has been an effective way to reduce smoking rates. But there comes a level at which the tax levels become so high, that people are incentivised to buy on the black market. We saw this with alcohol prohibition.
So what we have are more and more robberies of dairies, to steal cigarettes. And more and more people buying their cigarettes through the black market, rather than legally.
