From: CityLab
A study finds that 15 percent of packs sold over the counter bear illegal tax stamps. Even for nonsmokers, that’s a lot of dollars lost.
***
But as the city continues to raise prices on tobacco, illegal sales are becoming more mainstream—and the discounts aren’t always getting passed on to consumers. A study published Thursday inTobacco Control reveals that, from a sample of shops across the city, about 15 percent of cigarettes sold over the counter at full price had illegal tax stamps.
In the spring of 2014, New York University public health scholar and lead author Diana Silver had investigators purchase one pack of Marlboro Gold cigarettes at a mix of 92 chain and independent retailers, all licensed to sell cigarettes. These shops were either inside subway stations or adjacent to street-level transit stops, randomly selected across all five boroughs. The investigators did another round of purchases in the same neighborhoods in the fall, after a citywide minimum-price increase for cigarettes went into effect. All told, 830 packs were bought, at or above the city’s minimum price.
