Quote of the Day

The Australian government has spent the last decade introducing steep tax hikes to curb smoking, and, as a result, the country has the most expensive cigarettes in the world. The average price of mainstream cigarettes is 54.99 Australian dollars per pack (about $40). But the eyewatering prices have driven people to the black market.

The Australian government has spent the last decade introducing steep tax hikes to curb smoking, and, as a result, the country has the most expensive cigarettes in the world. The average price of mainstream cigarettes is 54.99 Australian dollars per pack (about $40). But the eyewatering prices have driven people to the black market.

…

between 2016 and 2025, the price of legal cigarettes nearly tripled while tobacco duty revenue more than halved. As a result, the Australian Treasury has downgraded tobacco excise revenue by $8 billion over the next five years in the latest federal budget.

Lower tax revenue is hardly something to mourn, but Australia’s collapsing legal tobacco market has come with a far darker consequence: a severe wave of gang violence, including firebombings and shootings. Since 2023, organized crime groups linked to Australia’s illicit tobacco and vape market have been tied to “more than 200 firebombings,” “at least 3 homicides,” and “multiple other non-fatal violent attacks,” according to the Australian Intelligence Commission.

…

Australia is yet another cautionary tale of what happens when the government polices the personal choices of adults and opens up a new front in the war on drugs. Even if the Australian government were to now reverse course and reduce tobacco taxes, illegal purchase has become normalized. It will be far more difficult to move customers out of the thriving black market that the taxes have created than it would have been in the first place.

Reem Ibrahim
June 5, 2026
Australia Tried To Tax Smoking Out of Existence. Now 80% of Tobacco Aussies Consume Is From the Black Market.

“This is no surprise!”, you might say. And, of course, many people recognize the pattern from the alcohol prohibition era in the U.S. and the current recreational drug market. Some will even predict a similar pattern will happen with firearm bans in the U.S. Yet, here is the part that just baffles me. Yeah, I know, it is irrational to assume people will be rational. Some of those same people will absolutely insist that “Big Phara”, “Big Oil”, or even “The Jews” can control some market.

When I hear someone claim that there is some cheap cure of cancer, some other disease or a dramatic life extension, or a gadget that can dramatically increase your gas mileage, or some other too good to be true claim, but the pharmaceutical/oil/whatever companies are suppressing it, I roll my eyes. If that were true then why when government attempt to dramatically increase the tax like with cigarettes in Australia or even completely ban alcohol other recreational drugs, and prostitution, the market still finds a way to deliver the product?

If a complete government ban on something does not prevent just about any room temperature high school dropout from obtaining the product, then how can the cure for cancer, old age, and the creation of 100 MPG 1970 Ford Galaxies be suppressed? And furthermore, as in the case of the dimwitted high school age kids, why doesn’t “everyone” know where to get a miracle cure for cancer and a 250 MPG gasoline powered Toyota Corolla?

Why can’t they understand that there is overwhelming evidence that the market always find a way?

It is easy to state the obvious, “People are just stupid.” But I don’t think that explains it. Many of the people believing this crap are not stupid in the general sense. I think it is a more subtle psychological issue in involving one or more of the following things and probably others:

• People hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.
• Some people get great pleasure believing they know something other people do not know–to the point of “knowing” outrageous things because of the feelings they get from their delusions.
• Many people don’t understand how markets work and even the world in general. In their bafflement they imagine things to explain things which are mysterious to them. Witches, ghosts, and demons are just a different manifestation of the same mental deficiency.
• Some people grew up in a family or even an entire culture of these beliefs.

For me, I keep reminding myself, “It is not rational to expect people to be rational.” But I really just want to retire to my underground bunker in Idaho and let the rest of the world rot in their delusions.