Buttcoiners Becoming Buttleggers: How One Cigarette Smuggling Operation Will Get Everyone Involved Arrested
Cigarette Smuggling: Its not just the thing your cool Uncle did for you in high school (besides letting you watch scrambled porn in his wood-paneled den). It is a huge, ever growing, worldwide industry that you probably didn’t even know was a thing. Not that its your fault: in the United States, anyone 18 or over can get them, pretty much anywhere, and turn their lungs into ash (you still can’t legally get fucked up on wine coolers, though). How bad could it be?
Havocscope puts the worldwide illegal cigarette smuggling trade at $50 Billion, with $10 Billion in the United States alone. Or if you’re in the tech industry, that’s 10 Instagrams!
How?! How is something that is legal pretty much everywhere (Sans smoking bans in specific places like bars, restaurants and Idaho) make so much money?! How could Boston be in a situation where it is selling a legal, regulated product, and yet 40% of the cigarettes sold there are black market? In NYC, the rate is estimated to be as low as 48%, and as high as 60% , bringing yearly losses of $419 Million dollars for the state. How does a regulated product you can buy pretty much anywhere bring about such a huge loss? More specifically, who would Ron Paul blame for all this?