Tabaksdrooglegging kost doden
Volgens de burgemeester van New York zouden de gigantische accijnsverhogingen op tabak mensenlevens sparen. De nieuwe drooglegging blijkt echter doden op te leveren in plaats van te sparen.
Veel bendes willen graag de $3 per pakje sigaretten die er ligt tussen de prijzen in New York en in indianenreservaten of andere staten te gelde maken. En dat levert weer het oude beeld van geweld op, precies 70 jaar na de beëindiging van de eerste drooglegging.
Het historische besef blijkt ver te zoeken onder de anti-rokers….
It was all being done for the good of New Yorkers: whopping tax hikes on cigarettes would mean residents smoked less and lived longer.
Unless, of course, they happened to be among the victims of a burgeoning turf war over bootlegged smokes.
Two young New York men have been murdered recently, and two others are recovering from gunshot wounds after separate street battles linked to cigarette smuggling.
The four are all suspected smugglers, so some might say their fate was their own doing.
But the violence erupted in neighbourhoods where law-abiding people walk the streets. The death of a child caught in gangland crossfire last month shows that bullets, once fired, can strike the innocent as well as the guilty.
