Friday, September 21, 2012

Legal, regulated drugs continue to be trafficked

Legalizing marijuana will not rid our state of drug trafficking and related criminal organizations.  Just check out what's going on in Virginia with legal and regulated cigarettes:

What kind of illegal smuggling has the highest profit margin for criminals? Moving heroin? Cocaine? Guns?

No. It's cigarettes.  

Cigarette trafficking has become so lucrative that it is attracting organized crime and former drug smugglers . . . 

. . . the profit margin on illegally trafficked cigarettes is now higher than on cocaine, heroin, marijuana or guns. 

. . . cigarette smuggling has existed for years. But as the discrepancy among states' tax rates has widened in recent years, the problem has worsened.

"We see data in the field that just in the last year it is blooming in the commonwealth . . . because Virginia has the second-lowest cigarette tax in the nation, at 30 cents a pack (2010 figures give Missouri's tax as the lowest, at 17 cents). Every state to the north has a higher tax, and by the time you reach New York state, the tax is $4.35 a pack."

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