Oh look, FAIL. 60% OF Smokes in NY Stae are smuggled.

Wait until we see soft drink speakeasies.

 

It's one of our largest ports (may in fact be still our largest and most active port), so NYC has always been, as far as I know, the smuggling capital of the United States. A lot of what's smuggled into New York ends up in all corners of the country, but that's not to say there aren't a lot of cheap cigarettes around. I finally found the study, at the Tax Foundation, but I can find nothing in the study that indicates where they got this data, how, or by what methodology. I'm a little suspicious because they're a pro-business research group. This doesn't seem like very good research. 5 of the mere 7 citations link back to their own website.

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/ff351.pdf

Fact is, New York rate of actual smokers is declining (whether the remaining who categorize as smokers smuggle or not, who cares), I think last I checked it hovered around 14%, which is down from where it was many, many years ago. That's the point of the tax; to dissuade people from smoking, which apparently, it has been doing. The purpose was not to cut down on smuggling, which may have increased, but that's an unintended consequence of the legislation. Seems to me like it's addressing the problem fine.