In einigen Gegenden ist die illegale Tabakindustrie mittlerweile größer als das legale Rauchen: Bericht – Schmuggelzigaretten gelten nicht nur als profitabler als Kokain, diese Einnahmen generieren auch Gewinne für die organisierte Kriminalität
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-illegal-tobacco-industry-now-surpassing-legal-sales-in-parts-of-the-country-report
27 Comments
In Brief:
* According to a new study commissioned by the Convenience Industry Council of Canada (CICC), contraband tobacco now accounts for 29 per cent of the market in Alberta, 38% in Nova Scotia, 45% in Manitoba, and a whopping 52% in New Brunswick.
* **Contraband cigarettes mostly originate on First Nations reserves in Ontario and Quebec, have become a “major selling feature” for well-known and established organized criminal groups such as the Hell’s Angels.**
* **“It is absolutely organized crime at the highest level. It’s a billion-dollar industry for (organized criminal groups). It involves all the levels of violence, and extortion and gangsterism that comes along with it, ”** says Rick Barnum, the executive director of the National Coalition for Contraband Tobacco and retired deputy commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Investigations and Organized Crime command.
* Now, he added, not only are contraband cigarettes considered to be more profitable than cocaine but those revenues generate profits for organized crime groups that help fuel their other illegal activities.
They’re only profitable because cigarettes are taxed to hell. I’m not against that, but the consequence is they’ve made plenty of room to get undercut.
Ontario had a cross-border smuggling crisis before – it ended when they dropped the taxes on cigarettes drastically. For some time, anyway.
I like to support indigenous businesses. 🤷♂️
Why buy legal when a carton off the res is 40.$. No tax.!
Those rez smokes reek everywhere I go I smell them
We had a similar situation in the early 90s – about 30% of all tobacco in Ontario was contraband/not properly taxed. The federal government ended up having to cut the excise tax to undercut the illegal market.
There just aren’t the super-harsh penalties of like meth trafficking when it comes to tobacco. It’s an excise tax violation, a Tobacco Act violation. In many cases it’s not criminal, when it is criminal it’s not an indictable offence. And because of the constitutional situation with the Indigenous people trafficking is relatively easy. There’s something rather free market about it all, really. I think in the recent anti-tobacco zeal we’ve forgotten that absent throwing people in jail for decades (and even then!) when you create a 10x profit incentive for trafficking something – people will traffick. Oh well. Cut taxes. Get a hold on the market again. Then start slowly squeezing tobacco to death again. Just not so fast this time.
it’s not complicated
Why would I spend nearly $30 a pack for legal smokes when I can get a carton of rez smokes for the nearly the same price?
There needs to be a class action lawsuit against First Nations for contributing to smoking deaths and health care costs of Canadians.
People who smoke do so regardless of the cost. I don’t know anyone who quit solely because the cost of a pack went up $0.25 people quit for other reasons and so-called ‘sin taxes’ really only hurt poor people.
do i pay $22 for one pack of Next Extra or $30 for 8 packs of indigenous smokes, i wonder what one most people will go for
I’m surprised more people don’t grow their own tobacco. It’s really easy to grow and one plant is enough to make a couple cartons of cigs easily. Plus the flowers are pretty and smell so good! absolutely intoxicating.
Commenting before the “but it won’t be the same if we legalize drugs, it wouldn’t be profitable” people hop in.
I FUCKING CALLED IT.
As soon as I saw that a pack of smokes was 20$+ I told everyone that all they’re doing is giving the black market a new product.
Making contraband smokes is the easiest thing in the world because they can get their source from third world countries legally for pennies then turn that into product’s for pennies and just rake in money and none of it is taxed.
Why do drug labs get outed? Power consumption, why does Fet and other drugs get found out crossing borders? Because of drug detecting technology.
Ports don’t care if you move a large amount of tabacoo, they’ll just think its another shipment for the plants.
When i get legal smokes you can taste the chemicals. Illegal smokes i taste the tobacco and cheaper.
Oh look, they’re grasping at straws again. Apparently Indigenous Businesses are “organized crime” now
I can’t say I’m particularly miffed over cigarette tax dollars, but anyone framing this as Indigenous enterprise is selling snake oil.
You guys seriously think there’s a secret Indigenous factory out there pumping out more tobacco into Canada than all of the legit American brands combined…? These cigarettes are smuggled in from China just like everything else and, naturally, skip every form of regulation and quality control on their way in.
What’s next for us, Indigenous brand 闻猫屁股horsefentanyl? Now with 50x more reconciliation™ per lethal dose
Stop overpricing everything and people will support you… its not rocket science
I’m smoke free for 4 years now but I remember contraband cigarettes. They were always terrible. They tasted like shit and the nicotine content was either non-existent or very very low. you didn’t feel like you smoked a cigarette after smoking one. Real cigarettes is where it’s at.
It’s going to be used as an excuse to crack down on the reserves.
Guess we better crack down on vaping flavours.
It’s the same thing with nicotine pouches.
Canada flat out bans 99.999% of nicotine pouches, so people just go to the reserve to buy it. They’re so dense they think that if they ban things, they just go away.
Oh look prohibition or trying to over tax something leads to a black market who would have thought
Perhaps the federal and provincial governments shouldn’t have waged war on the vape industry. Pricing people out of the less dangerous option is driving people to find cheaper alternatives.
Our cigarettes suck, they changed the taste when they did the plain packaging bullshit. On top of that they made vaping quite literally triple the price due to taxes
That’s what happens when the government taxes the shit out of a product people want. People will always look for a way to skirt the government.
“According to a new study commissioned by the Convenience Industry Council of Canada (CICC) **which represents retailers and convenience stores across the country**”
Sounds like sour grapes to me
Revenue from crime generates revenues for organized crime. Thanks NP I never looked at it that way.