California’s Gift to Its Neighbors: New at Reason

California voters decided to raise taxes on cigarettes. That’s good news for some.

J.D. Tuccille writes:

For too many years, Arizona has led the pack—or at least taxed the hell out of it—with among the higher cigarette taxes in the West. “A cigarette tax higher than in neighboring states and cheaper prices on American Indian reservations have helped fuel a growing black market for cigarettes in Arizona,” the Cronkite News Service reported in 2014.

It’s true that few of us actually paid that $2.00 per pack tariff for a pack of smokes; with every single state bordering us stealing less from smokers and a long, handy border with Mexico, half of all of the cigarettes sold in the state are smuggled from elsewhere, according to research by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Tax Foundation. Many Arizonans avoid getting mugged by enjoying life on the receiving end of smuggling routes. But we could be benefiting by running goods in the other direction.

And then Californians went to the polls on Election Day and hiked their cigarette taxes by $2.00 per pack. Business opportunities, here we come.

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