What would happen to price and quantity of cigarettes if it was made illegal?
Cigarettes are more addictive than many drugs, and account for more deaths each year, than all the other causes by drug abuse combined. But, unfortunately they cannot be made illegal for many reasons. As you suggest, people would still buy them, but “underground”, in what would be called the “Black market” or sold by pushers. All levels of government today put a heavy tax on those who sale, and buy cigarettes. These taxes are justified first to recover the public costs caused by smoking cigarettes. Costs of policing underage smoking, or costs of health care for smokers who get sick more, and die sooner. Governments have become “dependent” on these taxes. Perhaps other now illegal drugs should be decriminalized, and sold in stores, to make more public income, from taxing these drugs? Fewer people would be sent to prison, and policing costs would go down, again saving the taxpayers a lot of money. Bottom line, the costs of cigarettes would triple, if not quadruple, if they were made ille
