You would think that anyone who appreciates Dennis Leary's wit on the absurdity of social engineering could also appreciate the wider point about the ultimate futility of cigarette prohibition. But instead, in lockstep with industrial tobacco and the retail lobby, Kalvin Reid ("Serious tobacco plan should start with illegal cigarettes" – Jan 4) asserts that "We have a responsibility as a society to create healthy communities, and eradicating smoking is a big part of that." He promotes an initiative to save us from everything from lung cancer to yellow fingers. What about personal liberty and the responsibility of parents to monitor their own children?
In case Mr. Reid hasn't realized, imposing punitive costs on the consumption of tobacco is precisely what has made homebrewed cigarettes and the underground trade so lucrative. Before reinvigorating the crusade against smokers and their bootleggers, it might be worth considering that the black market actually provides an effective check against the prohibitionists, and not the other way around. It is the black market that withholds at least some private wealth from government and its corporate clients. As a form of tax resistance, the trade in contraband cigarettes is the only effective restraint on tax increases for an ostensibly legal product. The tail is wagging the dog.
