this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Stop crazy taxing, let the prices return to normal.
Nah. Until vaping took off, smoking rates plummeted.
Smells a lot better in this country compared to the ones they smoke in.
Ugh. (I do empathise with people who've picked up the habit, but not those who advocate for it)
Say what you will, the taxes worked, and have without a doubt saved us a tonne in avoided medical costs from all the people who gave up or never started smoking in the first place.
People talk as if a black market existing somehow negates the benefits of smoking reductions.
If it's black market, it's still more of a hassle to buy. Unless it's really out of control. In which case the answer is blaringly obvious.
Law enforcement.
Edit: in B4 nAnNy StAtE!!! Look, we live in a society people, where there are trade offs between freedom from and freedom to. It's not hard to argue that costing us all uncessarily with Medicare, making places smell like shit, and causing suffering to loved ones as you die an early death is a freedom from that trumps your "freedom" to sell your soul to the tobacco industry.
Go live on an abandoned oil rig for all I care, but if you want to live in stable, social (somewhat) democracy, that's the deal.
Out of the four smokers I regularly work with three of them have found shops that sell black market tailormades and the other buys pouches off some internet site which is almost certainly also dodging tax. It doesn't seem like they're having any hassles finding and buying these things and with black market apparently being about half the price of cheap legit cigarettes you'd have to be pretty firm on your principles to take the financial hit.
Yeah, we've dropped the ball. You actually need to do some enforcement to make this work, seems like that's hardly being done. And increases in enforcement would pay for itself.
Making something annoying to do definitely is a winning strategy.
It's not even criminal to use a VPN in China, but they are banned and make it very difficult use, you just accept your fate that they don't really work anymore. It's still possible to circumvent the Great Firewall, but requires way more effort than before. Most people just don't, even those with a desire to.
Just that for our purposes, it's for something worthwhile (In my opinion. Smoking is dumb, and as stated in another comment, someone's "freedom" to do it isn't convincing if you want to live in a social democracy.)
It really of out of control - the shops are obvious and if one closes down a new one inevitably seems to open (sometimes at the exact same location).
If there's a crackdown, it probably needs to be at the import level as well - these guys are getting so much loose tobacco and cigarettes into the country it is surprising to me. I am not versed in that area, so I don't know how easy it is to enforce such a crackdown, but it seems like shutting down (and charging shopowners?) isn't enough to stop the trade.
Licencing seems like a good first step (that, I find it mindboggling didn't already exist).
It's not like the same level of enforcement is needed continuously.
I kinda do think shutting down and charging shop owners would be enough to massively curb the trade. It wouldn't stop it, but suddenly it becomes more of a pain to buy.
Currently shops are doing this in the open. How hard would it be, honestly, to make a tip line (internet form), have a small team of inspectors go around, charge and shut people down? It kinda feels like this isn't even being done.
And if funding is the problem, well, it kinda pays for itself.
Gotta make it juuuust enough of a pain that you either quit, or are willing to pay the extortionate excise.
Can't really argue with the results, we massively curbed smoking in this country until vapes showed up.