Back when a $20 could get you a carton of premium brand, tax included, all my friends had multiple cartons in their trunks. Even then sometimes they’d get crazy and drive across the state line to get them for $14/carton, buying a few cases and bringing them back.
Cartons now at or above $100/carton.
But that’s mostly excise tax, not the manufacturer taking a bigger cut. We want people to smoke less, because it costs us less as a society (in money and misery) so we force the price of cigarettes up, and sure enough it works.
Back when a $20 could get you a carton of premium brand, tax included, all my friends had multiple cartons in their trunks. Even then sometimes they’d get crazy and drive across the state line to get them for $14/carton, buying a few cases and bringing them back.
Cartons now at or above $100/carton.
But that’s mostly excise tax, not the manufacturer taking a bigger cut. We want people to smoke less, because it costs us less as a society (in money and misery) so we force the price of cigarettes up, and sure enough it works.