TheAgitator.com
Michael Bloomberg, Financier of International Terrorism
Thursday, December 11th, 2003Welcome, Nurse Bloomberg, to the wonderful world of the black market.
Two people have been murdered and two others shot in separate acts of violence tied to a surge in cigarette bootlegging that has rocked the Big Apple in the aftermath of the whopping cigarette tax hike.The allure of easy profit – as much as $50 per carton – has drawn to the lucrative illegal cigarette trade a variety of criminals, from Russian thugs in Brighton Beach to gangs in Chinatown to suspects with ties to the terror group Hezbollah, police and federal officials say.
What’s aweing about this is that city officials knew and predicted the black markets and violence that would come as a result of the cigarette tax.
The NYPD created a unit called the Cigarette Indiction Group (CIG) to deal with the “anticipated” upturn in “buttlegging” immediately after the city passed a $1.50-a-pack tax increase in July 2002 – an extraordinary 1,900 percent jump from 8 cents a pack……McCarthy said the lucrative trafficking and the comparatively modest sanctions suggested the schemes could continue, as could the bloodshed.
“Any money-making scheme will branch into violence,” he said.
And yet they passed it anyway. Which only proves that the tax was never about public health, but about generating revenue for the cash-strapped city.
New Yorkers are still smoking. It’s just that now they’re paying criminals and international terrorists to get their smokes, instead of legitimate businesses. And now they get to dodge the turf war crossfire to get them.
The NY Post sports an editorial on the taxes today, too.
The funny thing about all of this is that it’s government policies that make the underground tobacco (and marijuana, and cocaine, and heroin) markets lucrative enough to attract international terrorists — policies enacted for the specific purpose of bringing revenue to government.
Then that same government spends your tax dollars to accuse you of supporting international terrorism.
God. You’d think they’d have learned from Prohibition and the War on Drugs. Can’t wait for the “Hamburger Wars” when McDonalds is banned.
You hit the nail right on the head with this one. As a law enforcement employee who combats cigarette trafficking everyday it’s hard to believe people still believe that raising the taxes will cause people to quit. There’s so much cigarette trafficking occurring in New York, Illinois, California, Washington, Michigan, and New Jersey that every federal, state and local law enforcement officer in each of those states could work cigarette cases every day for three years and still only stop approximately 25%.
does this mean the DoJ is gonna freeze the assets of the City of New York? It seems only fair, considering Justice’s past actions with groups they deem ‘supporters of terrorism’…
I was just looking for an example of irony…does someone have a good example?
doh…
People will never learn. I didn’t quit when my state raised the taxes on cigs. I even buy my cigs on the internet from time to time, it much cheaper and easier
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Previously living in Michigan, it was well known that smuggling cigarettes into Canada was big money. I guess people didnâ??t care because we (the US) were smuggling into a different country, and we were making the profit. It is ironic that now the tables have turned, and we are crying foul. I say we drastically drop cigarette prices, that way we can rip off Canada again.
I’ve been watching my neighborhood drug dealers make the migration from crack & weed to cigarettes. “smoke… rock…” to “loosies… Newports…”
I guess it was just a matter of time till the turf wars started. Sigh.
“CIG”?
Do people who create these acronyms really think they’re being clever?
Not so much comments as observations from a longtime New Yorker. Make of it what you will:
-At least two of my tobacco smoking friends have quit smoking because it’s too expensive; one other flouts the law and buys via mail.
-Teenagers openly sell small bags of pot on my block 24/7; there have been two shootings in the past year which may or may not be related.
-I buy pot from a friend who sells to make a little extra money. She’s a “respectable” middle-class person.
-When I first moved to New York in the 80s, they didn’t enforce pot laws. If you smoked it on the street and cops saw you, they’d tell you to put it out. You could easily buy cheap pot in Washington Square. When Giuliani took over, it all went underground. I know people who were arrested and jailed for smoking pot on the street. Overall, as a long-time potsmoker, I don’t know a single person who has quit smoking pot since enforcement intensified.
-I used to live with a guy in another state who made his entire living selling pot — for about seven years. He was a real artist with money laundering and tax cheating. Today, he’s a born-again Christian and a neoconservative.
-I used to buy pot through the mail and carry it onto airplanes regularly. Now I don’t even think about it because I’m afraid of the Patriot Act. At the same time, I usually know people in my travel destinations who can sell me some.
Well excuse me Ryn,, I was just using the short virsion, would you rather that I call them Fags? Move to England then
mmm… Dana, Ryn was referring to the name of the unit of officers that the city of NY created to “deal with anticipated upturn in bootlegging…”, they’re called Cigarette Indiction Group. Re-read the post.
Dana -
I believe Ryn was referring to the NYPD’s Cigarette Indiction Group (CIG), not your abbreviation, “cigs”…
Is “indiction” really the best “i” word they could come up with for that acronym?
I was thinking the same thing Brooke.
I’m sorry I don’t believe I was paying attention that time, I just noticed that I was the only one that used cigs in here, for that I apoligize.
Lately I have been thinking about quitting not smoking …
me too, every day
I am shocked, absoutely shocked, that organized crime would take advantage of a smuggling opportunity in New York City.
Radley: >The funny thing about all of this is that it’s government policies that make the underground tobacco (and marijuana, and cocaine, and heroin) markets lucrative enough to attract international terrorists — policies enacted for the specific purpose of bringing revenue to government.
One huge flaw here is that you’re talking about apples and oranges. I understand your sympathies to the drug legalization movement, but remember only your parenthetical references are still considered illegal drugs. Cigarettes are still entirely legal to purchase and use…until the government decides to ban them. There are no government policies to raise taxes for cocaine, marijuana, etc. For cigarettes, it’s about fiscal (tax/spend) policy. For the others, it’s about a social (drug) policy.
What about all the lives that Mayor Bloomberg has saved because people are exposed to less tobacco smoke?