--- Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote: > If cigarettes were
illegal, wouldn't a violent distribution emerge.
>
> --
Currently very, very easy to get your head kicked in by encroaching on someone else's patch for the distribution of smuggled baccy in any town in the UK. I don't know anyone who pays full taxed retail price for cigarettes any more; the distribution network appears to be unemployed ex-miners from the NorthEast of England who take vans across to Belgium. I've seen a few of them knocking seven bells out of some poor kid in a dispute over the distribution rights for a pub in North London. The sums of money involved mean that there aren't any guns involved however. I think that a cigarette distribution network would be *less* violent than crack cocaine, however, because cigarettes have a lower value density than crack. I also think that the low value density is intrinsic to the pharmacological properties of nicotine compared to cannabis, heroin, etc -- you need to transport a larger volume to provide someone with their daily consumption. For this reason, it's never going to be the kind of high-stakes product that's worth carrying an Uzi (and risking the concomitant jailtime) over.
d^2
===== ... in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. -- Bertrand Russell
____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie