Lorillard Tobacco Co. has begun to battle back against the continued increase of taxes on cigarettes. They have begun to run a series of ads on radio, in newspapers and upon the billboards dotting the sides of the highways in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
One ad featured a picture of a scowling, beefy man wearing a pinstriped suit and a pinky ring, posing next to a black sedan and a suitcase stuffed with cash. "The mob, smugglers, and other street criminals are making a fortune selling illegal cigarettes while legitimate small businesses are forced to cut jobs," the ad reads. The ads specifically take aim at New York City's taxes, saying they created a market for smugglers who make knockoffs of name brands or buy cartons in other states and resell them.
William V. Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, says the ads are initiated in hopes of lowering the price for a pack of cigarettes.
"Maybe we shouldn't have laws against drug use either, because people are going to go out and smuggle drugs?" John Kirkwood, chief executive of the American Lung Association, said. "The reasoning is fallacious."
Uh, people do smuggle drugs because there are laws against drug use, just as they smuggled liquor when there were laws against alcohol use. Governmental restrictions and control have always fed the coffers of organized crime. Who controls the bulk of the business in gambling, prostitution and the smuggling of contraband? Logic dictates that if a product is very expensive in one marketplace and very cheap in another marketplace, someone will use any means, lawful or otherwise, to make a profit by transporting the product from one marketplace to another.
[full AP story] via FindLaw
Posted by Tiger at May 12, 2003 10:04 AM