From: Forbes
The World Health Organization meets next week in Washington DC and will discuss the rise of illicit cigarettes, which are increasingly caused by WHO efforts against smoking. Smoking cigarettes kills millions every year and the WHO established the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005 to lower the death toll. The FCTC encourages developing nations to copy mature market policies of raising taxes and introducing and then expanding regulation on tobacco products.
As a result overall smoking has probably declined, but illicit cigarettes have flourished. Smuggling major brands from low tax areas, like North Carolina, to high tax areas, like New York, was historically the main form of illicit trade. But as the major cigarette manufacturers have worked with national governments to secure their supply chains, such trade has diminished. Its fast-growing replacement is a much harder form of trade to combat.
