Authorities claim to be “shocked at the extent” of a developing black market for tobacco products.

Come on guys, really – I mean ‘shocked’ does seem a push..?

Realistically, in New Zealand at least, where the price of cigarettes has and will surely continue to increase exponentially – that cost practically tripling in little more than a decade – for the nation’s more dedicated smokers the only economically viable, the only sensible solution was to go underground.

…Honestly, how can any Government group or other disproportionately controlling force maintain being ‘surprised’ at the result of putting out of reach such a widely loved, advocated by many, even endorsed by some, pastime? …

Take away a child’s favourite toy but, don’t take it away completely, just put it up on a shelf, out of reach, where the small dependant can still see it, but where that – addict? – cannot readily harness the toy’s goodness; where that hopeless dependant is all but powerless to extract the pleasure found within that wonderful toy.

…Ten years ago when cigarettes really began falling from fashion, when they were no longer seen as a good backdrop to raising children, when the world’s most famous smokers were no longer seen as capable role models, that time when cigarettes were truly starting to be vilified by the New Zealand Government – cigarette advertising was abolished to be replaced by those corny ‘Crush The Habit’ slogans, along with the ‘It’s Not Just Your Air’ mantra, which were soon replaced by the first of the ‘Stop Before You Start’ campaign and so on – who then began periodically hiking the price of tobacco products in a seemingly endless onslaught to the already precarious financial predicaments of most young smokers, I recall predicting that if the financial burden of cigarettes continued to escalate, given how impassioned most smokers are when it comes to smoking, I recall thinking that we, as the hardened smokers of New Zealand, will only take so much…

Smokers are historically a clever breed, the way we’d roll ten cigarette ends into one another to make one awesome half-metre long cigarette, or how we’d stick together a couple of papers and roll the biggest, most chokingest Marley ever seen; also with our homemade pipes and our bucket bongs – might be shifting codes there somewhat – but the point is the same.

…Dedicated smokers weren’t going to tolerate cigarette price-rises forever, and all the New Zealand Government has done, as predicted, as well as prompting a few less dedicated smokers (alas, I am one) to drop off along the way, is to open up this exciting new world of tobacco-retailer thievery, illegal tobacco import leading to what is likely gang-related, illicit tobacco trading.

Tobacco is a drug. It always has been; it has always been readily available, too. Cannabis is a drug; it is also readily available yet it is illegal. Alcohol is a drug too, it causes a greater financial drain on the nation than cigarettes or cannabis ever did; in fact it continues to be a massive drain on the nation largely because it’s so readily available, but it’s legal.

The reason cigarettes are still very much legal for people to purchase, despite being practically outlawed to smoke, is because for as long as those cigarettes reside behind shop counters the Government is still able to reap some tax benefit from their exorbitant sales; which is why cannabis cannot be legalised – it’s already underground so who really wants to start paying tax for it?

Of course if tobacco sale did one day become illegal the New Zealand Government would lose any tax generated by those few suckers who still buy their cigarettes over the counter, obviously, which is why it never will, obviously.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Smokey N DaBandit

Photography by Ander Grund