From: Martin Minow <minow@apple.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 11:24:20 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Dark Times Ahead - sort of off-topic
In-Reply-To: <19970223031916.13758.qmail@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <v03010d04af3643c104a8@[17.219.102.37]>
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"Pan D.Modium" <pandemodium@nym.alias.net> writes, in part:

>2.  Tobacco companies will cave in to the states on liability for
>    medical costs and declare bankruptcy.  The few remaining small
>    companies not party to the suits will see themselves targeted
>    after prices on a pack of cigarettes rises to 1000% of the
>    current price.  Two years from now, cigarettes will be almost
>    impossible to get and result in smuggling on a scale that dwarfs
>    cocaine and marijuana trafficing.

Some state prisons (Utah? Minnesota?) are smoke-free. Cigarettes are
a choice smuggling item. I vaguely recall a price of $200 per
cigarette (but note that, in a prison economy, the "dollar" is
only loosely connected to reality.

I can imagine a National Smokers Association: "When cigarettes
are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigarettes" -- or, somewhat
more appropriately, "you can have my cigarette when you pry my
cold dead fingers off of it."

Martin Minow (non-smoker, other vices not discussed)