Gee, Who Would Have Thought…

Tobacco is our most deadly legal recreational substance, with alcohol coming second. So what does the government do about it? Tax it to high heaven, of course, so that it becomes a virtually prohibited substance. And what happens when you do that? You create a black market.

A Newshub investigation has found tobacco is being illegally sold from private homes, with sellers openly marketing products on social media using codenames to avoid detection.

The director of the smoke-free advocacy harm group ASH Ben Youdan says there’s been a “steady rise” in black market sales of tobacco in NZ.

Gee, I wonder why.

[…] At the border, Customs says illicit tobacco being imported by organised crime groups to New Zealand makes up around 80 per cent of their fraud team’s work.

Let that sink in

[…] Any tobacco sold is also supposed to have health warnings…

Yep, not only is illicit tobacco tax free and cheaper, you also don’t get those annoying health warnings (sarc).

[…] Youden said relative to household income, cigarettes in New Zealand cost more than anywhere in the world.

He’d like to see the government do more work on promoting “constructive” alternatives like vaping.

“We really need to see the government put much more into actually supporting people to manage withdrawal, and into communities to supporting people to be smokefree so that as the legitimate supply is reduced it is not replaced with illegitimate supply.”

Now that makes sense.

But of more concern is organised crime groups. Gangs predominantly in southeast Asia are targeting New Zealand with illegal tobacco.

Since 2021, 47 per cent of illegal seizures made by Customs have originated in China.

[…] A new dedicated Customs tobacco investigation team will be operational next year – key to combating a crime that threatens our Smokefree 2025 ambitions.

Which of course is an entirely unrealistic goal, as anyone with half a brain can work out.

So there you go, another government blunder. If you prohibit something that people want, you create a black market and with it associated harms.

To be fair though, the true test is whether the harm from tobacco outweighs the harm caused by having it as a virtually prohibited substance. But I doubt the government has even considered that.