Gotta a light? Having once long ago lived in New York and observed the curious way that people would visit my barber to buy cartons of cigarettes, I am well aware that high cigarette taxes lead to "alternate channels of distribution". So I wasn't surprised to read the NY Post article on the effects of the latest NYC taxes that have raised the price to $7 per pack. Beyond the usual interstate smuggling, it seems that the Internet has swung into action with a host of web sites selling smokes. There is even a meta-site, Cigarette Yellow Pages, that compares prices among all the online sources.

It would be nice if politicians and bureaucrats were forced to take some sort of practical economics course (like a job in the productive economy) before ascending to their thrones. We might have less foolishness of all sorts. And certainly less toilet smuggling.