From: The Globe and Mail
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Instead of simply smoking fewer legal, expensive cigarettes, smokers started looking for cheaper, illegal alternatives. Smugglers and bootleggers started bringing cigarettes across the border in huge and growing quantities. The legal cigarette market – taxed, regulated, overseen by government – was increasingly being replaced by a black market: unsupervised, untaxed and run by organized crime.
The tobacco harm-reduction strategy hit a tipping point. Despite the best of intentions, it appeared to be promoting more harm than it reduced. In response, cigarette taxes were lowered.
