Clearing The Air

Friday, May 19, 2006

What's that old saying?

....those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.......

Prohibition of alcohol was repealed because it created black markets, organized crime, and violence.

It seems Minnesota is getting a history lesson these days again.....ala the anti-tobacco activists and our own liberal "I once was a Republican (in name only)" Governor Tim Pawlenty.

You may remember DFL wannabe (it seems) Tim Pawlenty orchestrated the $0.75 "fee" on cigarettes. Partly because the Nicoderm activists like Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have been funding new legislative efforts to expand their alternative pharmaceutical nicotine products, and partly because Pawlenty didn't want to call it what it is.....a tax.

So now with a pack of smokes running nearly $5.00, local free market opportunists have decided it's worth the risk of potentially getting caught to get into the business of providing cigarettes to an underground market. I am of course referring to the latest trend of "crash and grab", where local thieves are crashing stolen cars into convenience stores and then making off with thousands of dollars in cigarettes.

I wonder if the thieves are providing Tim "never maintained a conservative principal that I couldn't later disregard" Pawlenty with his $0.75 "fee?"

Prohibition of tobacco doesn't seem be faring any better than what we experienced in the 1920's with the prohibition of alcohol.......something tells me this new "experiment" may also end very soon.