The Tobacco Wars
22nd July 2026
In the early 1930s, the Australian government lost a war against emus, and its present war, this time on tobacco, is heading the same way. Excessive taxation in the name of public health has backfired in extraordinary fashion, helping create a massive black market in tobacco products. This has led to an effective transfer to criminal gangs of billions of dollars of revenue previously earned by the legal tobacco industry, and a corresponding significant drop in excise tax revenue collected by the government, unprecedented violence between those gangs as they scrap over money and territory, and, to top it all off, an increase in the consumption of tobacco and nicotine..
Exhibit A. Politicians are both stupid and ignorant.