Darroch Ball
Co-leader Sensible Sentencing Trust.
The existence of a tobacco black market isn’t anything new. What is new is the fact it has grown so massively that tobacco is now quickly becoming the new drug of violence in our community.
In many ways, the black market has been a ‘creeper issue’ that has gone under the radar. But if you take even just a cursory glance at the past decade, there have been regular warning signs that it was heading out of control.
It’s not just about gangs making money out of selling this addictive drug cheaper that we should be worried about – it is the level of violence that has been spiralling out of control: specifically targeting dairies and service stations.
The most concerning aspect of all of this is the pathway taken by successive governments to seemingly do all they can to create the environment needed for this violence to skyrocket. It is most astounding that when they started down this pathway they couldn’t see that this was the inevitable outcome – or they did see, but kept going anyway.
We have seen a massive increase in the illegal importation of tobacco with the vast bulk of it evading our under-resourced border agencies. Customs are now seizing around 125,000 cigarettes and 155 kg of loose tobacco every month and this is just the tip of the iceberg. In 2019 more than 230 tonnes of tobacco entered the black market, accounting for more than 11% of all tobacco consumed – an increase of 1.5% on the year before.
The main and most obvious reason for the existence of the black market is the exponential tax increases that have occurred between 2010 and 2020. In 2019 alone, the illegal tobacco consumed would have represented an estimated tax value of more than $280m.
A recent study conducted by Dr Marewa Glover in the Safer Communities Journal showed there were over 570 aggravated tobacco-related robberies in the last ten years. It shows the frequency of robberies has increased in line with the tax increases – which seems like a logical connection to understand.
Back in 2016 the National government saw this growing issue and decided they had to look like they were doing something, so they funded some security devices in a few stores including things such as fog cannons. And then they proceeded to increase the tax again.
It has been patently clear that the effectiveness of increasing these taxes hit its ceiling a long time ago. It has now created some severely detrimental issues for many small businesses in our community.
There has been a huge increase in aggravated robberies, smash-and-grabs, and violent assaults targeting tobacco. Some Auckland dairies have been robbed six times in just the last month – they are saying the past 18 months have been the worst they have seen and that they are now terrified to go to work.
It is only a matter of time before innocent people are killed for the sake of a few packs of cigarettes.
So the question that needs to be asked is what is the government going to do? Because right now they are sitting on their hands and watching small-business owners bear the brunt of a clearly failing policy.
The Minister of Police Poto Williams can talk all she wants about how many people have been arrested, and the Minister of Customs (whoever that is) can talk about how much has been seized at the border – newsflash: this isn’t a solution, this is just called enforcing the law.
Clearly holding violent thugs to account is an important part of what needs to happen – it will make a good change from giving them a hug and hot mug of Milo. But if the government is serious about the ‘crime prevention’ they preach, perhaps they need to look at the main drivers of this crime – the continued ineffective tax increases and their ridiculous penchant for over-regulation of the only existing tobacco alternatives.
If a coordinated and properly planned solution is not implemented soon, these violent robberies will only continue to increase. Unfortunately, the government seems hell-bent on continuing blindly down the exact same pathway. The only possible result will be more money for the gangs, and more innocent people being hurt or even killed.
The irony is that all of this is avoidable – but will still occur – because apparently, this is the only drug in existence that Labour and the Greens think should be illegal. Riddle me that.
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