The Department of Revenue apparently wants to give up one potential source of revenue. Its House Bill 1017 asks the Legislature to repeal Revenue’s authority to resell confiscated cigarettes. Under HB 1017, if the state seizes any contraband cigarettes, its only option will be to destroy them.
I don’t have data yet (and thus look forward to the first hearing before House Commerce and Energy), but I can imagine there could be some complications that make it more costly to warehouse, market, and redistribute seized smokes than it is just to throw them in the burn barrel (stand back, fellas…). Let’s hear the numbers: how many cartons do we seize each year, and how hard is it to resell them?
And even if there are costs, maybe instead of just burning them up, South Dakota should embark on a bigger project to market discount cigarettes. Governor Noem is looking for the Next Big Thing….
Isn’t the gubmint supposed to be discouraging smoking to save on healthcare costs for the taxpayers?
Would the state forego any state taxes to sell them cheaper and compete with retailers?
Would those in power set up a special crony in business to sell said contraband and pocket the lion’s share of the monies?
There is an interesting principle point, Mike. If you catch your kid with smokes, you don’t sell them at your rummage sale; you break ’em and burn ’em to make a point.
Maybe also statewide, the state should avoid introducing illegal cigarettes in any way into the market place, which might put legitimate dealers at a disadvantage.
Reminds me of that cold Super Bowl Sunday in 1980 when ice fishermen were leaving their ice holes on the river near Akaska at sundown and a four-engine DC-7 swooped low overhead into the grassy flats of the bluffs. People reported a downed plane to law enforcement who converged on the scene and found the plane loaded with $18 million in marijuana bales freshly flown uo from Colombia.
The bales were confiscated, six men arrested and brought to trial, and the state decided to dispose of the evidence by making a bon fire of it. College students wanted the fire to be declared a state holiday so that they could go and stand downwind from the fire.
https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/drug-bust
Good story, Prof. Newquist. It brings up an observation of mine. College students and young people in general make better choices when marijuana is legal than when it’s legally forbidden. Pot is pretty much passe’ in CO, now. No more a part of decision making than a liquor store. A lot of human religion, culture, society has often been about slowing our impulses or fighting against them. Sounds like South Dakota’s mantra to me. That thinking style is repressive of progress. Allowing free choice allows people to thrive. Repression of choices makes college students do dumb things like want to stand in smoke just to escape the rules made by those who can’t tolerate other’s personal and natural impulses. *notice, I didn’t refer to German Americans at all.
Dr. Newquist trip down memory lane proves that the wall on the southern border is as stupid as it gets. Drugs have mostly been delivered in this country through the sea ports or by air…from Canada. The ship yards of Montreal are prime territory for contraband, always has been. So then, with the Coast Guard being forced into indentured servitude, who will watch the seacoast without needing to make a little cash to feed the family?Now with more states legalizing marijuana, we will be looking at illegal cigarettes coming into the country. Build that wall Nelson, between North and South Dakota to keep those contraband smokes out of the smoke shops. BTW, in Mexico, $2.77 American for Marlboro Red’s.
Mexican Marlboros are very harsh. There was a liquor store up the street that sold cigs without the CO tax stamp on the bottom. Turns out the owner’s wife was a flight attendant and she’d buy her allotment at duty free stores and resell them in the store.