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That’s my own fault: Last week, on my way to the airport, I bought 10 packs of my favorite cigarettes in West Virginia for about $6 a pack, then did something uncharacteristic of me and left them in my car.
It was bad enough at my first stop in San Francisco, where a package of 20 fleeting bliss-inducing sticks cost a whopping $15, but in Chicago, my heart and wallet were astonished when a 7-Eleven cashier rang up a two-pack for $40.
Why not 100? Why not a million?
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First of all, this is pointless. I asked the hotel concierge about this and he said “No one who lives here would pay that kind of money, they buy it from the store in the basement.”
“You’re from Indiana?” I asked, and he replied, “Yes, you are.”
Go ahead and feel smug and superior as you pass us, we don’t care. Tax cigarettes all you want, we’ll find a way around it. (iStock)
I knew this game in New York City, where most tobacconists sell $9 cigarettes made in Virginia, and in fact, if you stop a smoker on the streets of Gotham, there’s a good chance that their pack of cigarettes will have an Old Dominion tax stamp on it.
But not only are these exorbitant taxes ineffective — in fact, smoking rates remain essentially constant no matter what the price of cigarettes is — this is insulting.
Kamala Harris’ San Francisco is a dystopian nightmare. Is this what she has planned for America?
As a smoker, and we all have had these experiences, I’ve had the experience of standing alone and out of the way and someone makes a face at me or says, “That’s gross!”
That’s strange behavior. Big Mac And you say, “How could you do that to yourself?” Because that would make you a jerk. Chicago doesn’t tax you to make a Big Mac $20.
(Chicago doesn’t charge a $20 tax on Big Macs.)
The only real comparison for the mistreatment of smokers is during the COVID-19 epidemic when someone yells “Mask!” from 30 feet away if you don’t have a pointless piece of cloth over your mouth.
Our country was founded against unfair taxation, yet even George III could not take such punitive measures when it came to smokers.
And it’s the same instinct, and it has nothing to do with health or safety, it’s about feeling morally superior, about having the opportunity to look down on your peers and feel better than them.
Smoking has become so expensive in this big blue Democrat-run city that it’s now common to pay a dollar or two to have someone smoke a cigarette, while the real smoker never gets the money.
In Chicago, my heart and wallet were blown away when the cashier at the 7-Eleven charged me $40 for a two-pack. (iStock)
Because you know what’s more valuable than a dollar? It’s spending three minutes with a stranger and hearing about them, their life, their story. And I do that almost every day.
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Tomorrow I will drive down the country roads back home to where I belong, and there will be ten packs of cheap cigarettes waiting for me, but these exorbitant prices will continue in other parts of the country where loudmouths are trying to control everyone’s lives.
Our country was founded against unfair taxation, yet even George III could not take such punitive measures when it came to smokers.
Tomorrow I will drive down the country roads back home to where I belong, and there will be ten packs of cheap cigarettes waiting for me, but these exorbitant prices will continue in other parts of the country where loudmouths are trying to control everyone’s lives.
But I will say this to you, they cannot and will not stop us. We will smoke in Chicago, we will smoke on the seas and oceans, we will smoke on the beaches, we will smoke on the landings. We will never surrender our barges.
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So go ahead and feel smug and superior as you pass us. We don’t care. Tax cigarettes all you want. We’ll find a way around it. This is the United States of America. And we do what we want to do, not what the government wants us to do.
Enough with the long story short, go easy. If you want a smoke, I’ll be on the corner.
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