High Taxes: The Root of Violence
From: Cato Institute
Jeff Sessions Misunderstands Drugs and Crime
By David Boaz
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Tobacco has not (yet) been prohibited in the United States. But as a Cato study of the New York cigarette market showed in 2003, high taxes can have similar effects:
Over the decades, a series of studies by federal, state, and city officials has found that high taxes have created a thriving illegal market for cigarettes in the city. That market has diverted billions of dollars from legitimate businesses and governments to criminals.
Perhaps worse than the diversion of money has been the crime associated with the city’s illegal cigarette market. Smalltime crooks and organized crime have engaged in murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery to earn and protect their illicit profits. Such crime has exposed average citizens, such as truck drivers and retail store clerks, to violence.
Again, to use Sessions’s language, cigarette trafficking is not an inherently violent business. But drive it underground, and you will get criminality and violence.
