Editorial: Ciggie prices fuelling crime

Hiking cigarette and tobacco prices is a tactic that was meant to deter people from smoking.

The primary health hazard arising from smoking has historically been disease and health ailments caused by cigarette smoke.

We can now add to that the risk of injury and even death at the hands of criminals hell bent on getting their hands on Northland's latest hot black-market commodity - cigarettes.

Whoops - that wasn't supposed to happen.

Hiking cigarette and tobacco prices is a tactic that was meant to deter people from smoking.

And it should work, if the smoking cessation support and marketing is as aggressive as the price hikes. But it seems that the upward rise of tobacco costs has not been met with an equivalent decrease in demand.

As prices have gone up, a few other things have changed.

Drug dealers and P manufacturers have established a firm footing in regions like Northland. Northland has always had organised crime of some sort, based around cannabis and stolen goods, and involving gangs. But P is a business where the stakes and risks are high, but the profit margins are massive. Unless, of course, it all goes wrong and police stumble across your half-tonne of methamphetamine on a Far North beach.

P provides a business model and product distribution network for other commodities such as cigarettes. Easy money if you can get your hands on the product and get rid of it within your drug retail and manufacturing business.

Right now, it seems that someone is on a shopping spree for cigarettes and tobacco.

And it's unlikely to be one-off chancers stocking up for their private collection.