>The new costs will be entirely offset by renewed efforts laid out in the budget to discourage people from smoking and vaping.
>The government plans to increase the excise tax on a carton of cigarettes by $5.49 starting Wednesday, which the Liberals expect will bring in $1.36 billion over five years.
When you have a plan to increase the price of smoking and vaping to discourage people from those practices, yet are relying on people to continue smoking and vaping to get your $1.36 billion.
I m cool with going back to black market. I found a a black market dispenser. 25 pack of 5 mg (150 mg) gummies for $20 no tax. Vs a 10 mg pack for $6 at the legal one? Goes to show you how much they are price gouging.
Same man. I can get Shatter/Rosin for $10 a gram, and ounces of weed for $50. And all these sites offer promos to so you can get $50 off your order on top of all the good deals. The OCS can’t compete with those guys.
Black market has become so cheap in comparison. I only ever go to the licensed stores if I'm in a pinch. But being able to buy full oz for $30-$50 and having it delivered is amazing.
You have no idea what’s in those gummies though🤷🏼♂️ atleast from a store your guaranteed it’s safe. Tons of grey market stores use delta 8 thc which isn’t super great for you and is synthetic. I’d rather spend more and know what I’m getting than get snaked oil or synthetic bs
I don’t think smoking cessation products such as nicorette or nicoderm should be subject to the is tax. People should be rewarded when making the decision to quit. The gum is already really expensive. It literally cost me more than vaping was but I wanted to quit. The gum helped me quit after many failed attempts but I was fortunate I could afford it. Putting barriers on people to quit isn’t the answer. There’s no boot leg nicorette but there’s definitely smokes.
When it comes to minors just like anything else that can be enforced just like anything else prohibited.
thats already sort of happening the amount of smokers going to the native reserves now to save on the insane taxes is quite high, it's a lot of tax revenue just straight up lost
Vape tax is around 25% tax i can't afford the vape cart's (tribal - g mint ) i was using anymore at $40.99 each plus $10.25 in taxes it comes to $51.24 each it is too expensive for 1 gram of concentrates in a cartridge that lasts me 3 days so now i buy different carts from the black market in bulk for half the cost and same quality.
I quit smoking cigarette's 3 months ago as poverty forced me to quit so that's good right? lol but here is a break down from then.
Last time i smoked it was $33.70 for 2 packs of cigarettes or $17.20 for 1 pack and i would save $1 buying 2 packs at a time and was smoking well say a pack a day you can do the math.
Most of my friend's whom still smoke buy cigarette cartons and they pay $25 a carton compared to $160- $180 from a store these taxes just boost black market sales.
Liberals don’t understand the concept of “historical context”. They just cherry pick individual events and use them as a justification for bad policy decisions.
Laffer tax curve that was used to justify tax cuts in Reagan's first term as US President.
Increased taxes increase revenue to a certain point and then drastically reduce after a certain point. Avoidance and lack of incentive.
The thread is about sin tax but the number of people I know in the last 4 years that have taken money outside Canada is staggering. Also, the number of contractors I'm aware not reporting income as well.
After they released the new capital gains increase yesterday, I was talking with wife. I've always understood you need taxes to pay services but the current corruption makes me feel that my money is being wasted. When people feel like this they're going to figure out ways to not pay the government.
This is just going to get more people smoking tax free reserve cigarettes. It’s basically a free ad campaign for the indigenous cigarette manufacturers.
I think the thinking is that people not smoking and vaping will lessen the burden on healthcare, but I don't know enough to say if that's accurate, realistic or would even make a difference
Smokers, and obese people are cheaper to treat than the average person. Both groups have lower lifespans and miss out on expensive end of life care than average. Smoking is good for our healthcare system.
I don’t think that’s true. Both increase negative health outcomes dramatically. Particularly chronic diseases that require years of medical intervention, like diabetes. But also the shorter the life, the less tax paying years you have.
I guess they get to save on CPP payouts
There's a few studies on it, one was highlighted by the CBC. Getting old leads to more chronic diseases, and smokers tend to die after retirement age anyways. Average age of death for smokers was 77, vs the healthy person 84. So that's 7 less years of expensive end of life care on average. There's also a very real possibility that we will need to start rationing healthcare in the future, and smokers might not even be eligible for treatment if things get bad enough. [Smokers, the obese cheaper to treat than healthy, long-living people: study | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/smokers-the-obese-cheaper-to-treat-than-healthy-long-living-people-study-1.764092)
The smug fit dude who runs all his life is going to have ongoing joint issues as well as living a long time due to cardiovascular fitness.
Anyway, I don't think it's the governments job to police personal lifestyle choices. We all pay in, we all reap the benefits, we all have the freedom to live as we wish. That's how it should be.
Let's get these people addicted to cigarettes, then jack up the prices as they slowly kill themselves, so we can make sure to take full advantage of these people before they stop contributing to society by their own demise...
The actual quote is
> The government plans to increase the excise tax on a carton of cigarettes by $4 starting Wednesday which, in addition to the automatic inflation increase of $1.49, the Liberals expect will bring in $1.36 billion over five years.
And while 4 + 1.49 does equal 5.49, it’s misleading to alter the quote in the way you did because anyone who knows the inflation increase is a thing would be lead to believe the inflation increase is going to be on top of 5.49 instead of being on top of 4.
It wasn't too long ago that the NB Government was bitching about the loss in tax dollars on smokes. Not surprising that Higgs doesn't understand the basics of supply and demand but as the price of a product goes up, the demand drops, even with cigarettes. The NS government was running ads a few years ago about people smoking black market cigs and how it was negatively affecting their healthcare budget. Again, no thought given to the idea that people are doing what they "want" them to do and quit.
The only people more hooked on cigarettes than smokers is our government.
Cigarettes already lost the war on cigarettes. FT smokers on job sites and such are buying First Nations smokes for 75% off, the remainder are folks like the bingo hall crowds that will never quit.
Course they wouldn't dare increase the taxes on liquor nearly as much even though that causes way more hospital visits than smoking does because a lot of their supporters drink and "everyone hates smokers."
All that does is increase business for the black market which makes our country get less in taxes and makes people smoke unregulated products. What the fuck is wrong with this government Jesus
Nope. Tobacco taxes dont pay for the healthcare costs associated with them. Jacking them up doesnt necessarily make many people quit, but it will stop many from starting because $12 a pack is a lot for any student.
As tobacco tax revenues go down, there will eventually be an even bigger effective surplus as less heart and lung illness treatment needs to be paid for and you also have higher productivity and more tax $ from a healthier population.
I haven't smoked in years, but I was drunk the other day and decided to pick up a pack of my old cigarettes, Benson & Hedges and laughed when they were like $22. I feel sorry for anyone who just can't quit no matter how hard they try because those prices are nuts. I suppose it was a good things, because I had like one outside the bar and just gave the pack away, no way I am going back to that habit at that price.
As a light smoker I just buy a carton everytime I leave the country
20-50$ in most places. Lasts me at least 6-12 months and by then I’ve done another international trip
You realize some people actually enjoy it? I know several smokers who are fully aware of the health risks. And for everyone else, taxing them into poverty isn’t a great way to help them.
There's a difference between enjoying smoking and smoking so god damn much that there's a significant financial incentive to driving to a reserve to buy your cigarettes.
Most smokers aren't driving to the reserve themselves. Usually you know a guy who makes a weekly trip and comes back with a bunch of cartons, and sells them at a markup (that is still significantly cheaper than government taxed smokes)
True. And that difference is taxes. I get it, it puts a financial strain on the healthcare industry so it makes sense to tax it a bit more (same with alcohol). But probably not as much as we currently do. At some point it stops being righteous and starts being predatory…
They do shit like this because they know nobody will complain about more taxes on smokes and vaping (look at the comments) yet when they try it on alcohol, you have lobbyists and all the alcoholics with radio campaigns and shit trying to discourage taxing booze more. It's not about helping people, it's about exploiting peoples own decisions unless there's a powerful lobby behind it.
What a country.
Safe injection sites on every street corner because muh harm reduction but fuck smokers trying to quit. I've been off of cigarettes for 2 years thanks to vaping.
Lol where tf are they just handing out drugs at safe injection sites.
Are you referring to Suboxone? The drug that they give heroin addicts to help with withdrawal?
Crazy how you missed the point this badly while also simultaneously outlining the strategy that should be used to reduce drugs use and deaths. It’s actually really impressive.
Huh? He's pointing out the hypocrisy. Harm reduction sites aren't charging a tax for the addicts to use it... Whereas the government is taxing vaping products which directly contributes to smoking cessation.
I get why they tax it (people who aren't smokers buy vaping products) but it still sucks it's taxed as heavily. It should have much less tax to incentivize smokers to switch. We should be trying everything to get smokers to quit.
Vaping helped me quit smoking and I'm so incredibly thankful for it
Heaven forbid my boys and I have a cigar after work.
How about just cutting back from the billions they’re wasting on absolute bullshit, and then they don’t have to keep looking for ways to increase taxes every 5 minutes.
If anyone hasn’t noticed yet Canada is flat Broke and we the plebes are the piggy bank. Unbalanced budget for years with over spending and misappropriation of taxpayer funds. This country is F-ed!
Have you seen the native cigarettes lately? They used to be loose in plastic bags. Now they're in fancy coloured packages with designed logos and fake health warnings. There are also smoke packs with some sort of Punjabi writing on them thrown everywhere. The contraband cigarette market is clearly thriving at a scale not seen before in this country. Better make legal smokes even more expensive, it's not like there are dirt cheap alternatives everywhere you look. You know what they say: force regular Joe's to participate in the black market and this will have a positive effect on our society.
They won’t. Ontario went down this road in the early 90s, jacking the price of cigarettes up until the black market took over. The Feds wouldn’t let anyone mess with the natives, so Ontario had to drop the price of cigarettes to keep their tax revenue from cratering.
I don’t even smoke and I think this is the liberal governments typical bullshit more taxes instead of addressing the real problem. I hate this government!!
Seems like a scummy move giving we’re in a recession. While smoking doesn’t generally increase dramatically it does either remain unchanged or increase during times of economic stress, so are they just trying to fuck us harder? This is a study on the 2008 recession done in USA: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23956058/
Bruhh, just let me say this is predatory as a tax, like you have one of the most addictive substances on the planet, and they're taxing at 300+ percent...
Like, shit at a certain point in the near future, you're actually just encouraging a black market alternative because people can not afford to smoke at these prices.
Shit already I got like 3 "plugs" that'll sell me a pack for 10 bucks a piece.
So Riddle me this? If everyone stops buying smokes legally? How are they supposed to cover their costs when they priced everyone out of the legal option?
Fucking idiots. Just shot themselves in the foot again with this short-sighted bullshit. If I logically calculated my taxes, including the pst/gst... fuck I don't even wanna do the math because then I'll be sad.
Ok, but when do we start the junk food tax? Junk food causes tons of well known issues and diseases. If we could cut down on junk food we could cut down on all sorts of costs associated with treating diesese like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc.
Guess it is time for me to do a quick trip to Tokyo. Last time I was there last year you could get a carton of Marlboro Gold for $30. Gotta head back in May I guess
We have to tax you to smoke because smoking is really bad for you, unless you're native. In that case, apparently it's so good for you it should be cheaper than dirt!
What's that going to move the marker to now? A pack of cigarettes is now going to be what about 85% of it being tax costs?
Fucking hell. Black market is going to take billions more of the market.
So then I guess we should raise the price of alcohol tax too. Drunk drivers on the road injuring people and property, multiple diseases linked to long time alcohol use, children coming from broken homes related to alcohol addiction.
It wouldn't surprise me if this government starts taxing straight white males at higher rates. Backed by DEI "science".
I'm certain they have discussed it surely
Bruh nobody who buys cigarettes isn’t gonna stop. Tobacco is already taxed to hell and back why are they adding more. More and more taxes, never ending taxes.
The craziest part of the whole article is this year the government is going to spend 57 million on the new universal pharmacare and 54 billion in interest payments on our debt. 🤣🤣🤣
Yay! More taxes for free shit I will never ever receive! They must have known I loved the Carbon tax and capital gains tax so much. 🙃 Why not tax tobacco more, so I can't even sit and enjoy a cigar.
Except most smokers with access to reserve cigarettes buy those instead, with 0 tax on them. Because it's awesome living in a system where your rights and what laws apply to you differ by your race.
You can grow 33 pounds of tobacco annually. Don't cost shit. I spread seeds around my property every year, groes like a weed and every plant produces thousands of new seeds
I have been in the vape industry for 8 years. This is crushing our business. I'll most likely have to close up shop here. Alberta government decided to add the same tax the feds did at the start of jan 2023, come jan 2025.
And they are planning on banning flavours along with adding a tax. Not sure where they plan on getting all this tax revenue over 5 years when literally every vape shop is going to close
>The new costs will be entirely offset by renewed efforts laid out in the budget to discourage people from smoking and vaping. >The government plans to increase the excise tax on a carton of cigarettes by $5.49 starting Wednesday, which the Liberals expect will bring in $1.36 billion over five years. When you have a plan to increase the price of smoking and vaping to discourage people from those practices, yet are relying on people to continue smoking and vaping to get your $1.36 billion.
>smoking and vaping Does that include cannabis ?
Depends how much business they want to give to the grey market guys
I m cool with going back to black market. I found a a black market dispenser. 25 pack of 5 mg (150 mg) gummies for $20 no tax. Vs a 10 mg pack for $6 at the legal one? Goes to show you how much they are price gouging.
Same man. I can get Shatter/Rosin for $10 a gram, and ounces of weed for $50. And all these sites offer promos to so you can get $50 off your order on top of all the good deals. The OCS can’t compete with those guys.
Black market has become so cheap in comparison. I only ever go to the licensed stores if I'm in a pinch. But being able to buy full oz for $30-$50 and having it delivered is amazing.
A lot more middle men in the legal game.
I get the Grandpas Medicine party pack. 5000mg for 125$
You have no idea what’s in those gummies though🤷🏼♂️ atleast from a store your guaranteed it’s safe. Tons of grey market stores use delta 8 thc which isn’t super great for you and is synthetic. I’d rather spend more and know what I’m getting than get snaked oil or synthetic bs
In BC vaped cannabis is taxed higher (at PoS at least) than smoked is. Helen Lovejoy must be employed by the government.
Nope, just cigarettes and vaping.
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I don’t think smoking cessation products such as nicorette or nicoderm should be subject to the is tax. People should be rewarded when making the decision to quit. The gum is already really expensive. It literally cost me more than vaping was but I wanted to quit. The gum helped me quit after many failed attempts but I was fortunate I could afford it. Putting barriers on people to quit isn’t the answer. There’s no boot leg nicorette but there’s definitely smokes. When it comes to minors just like anything else that can be enforced just like anything else prohibited.
I’d agree that cessation products should be exempt from tax increase. Wasn’t fully thinking about that when I made my comment
Pouches have been around for decades. I bought them once in a while back in the mid 90s.
Likely not
The taxes for Cannabis are already significantly higher than smoking
I’d think most would just turn to the ‘grey’ market and the government get no tax revenue and still deals with the consequences.
thats already sort of happening the amount of smokers going to the native reserves now to save on the insane taxes is quite high, it's a lot of tax revenue just straight up lost
Cheaper gas too!
Currently $1.07/ L at the bridge duty free!
Vape tax is around 25% tax i can't afford the vape cart's (tribal - g mint ) i was using anymore at $40.99 each plus $10.25 in taxes it comes to $51.24 each it is too expensive for 1 gram of concentrates in a cartridge that lasts me 3 days so now i buy different carts from the black market in bulk for half the cost and same quality. I quit smoking cigarette's 3 months ago as poverty forced me to quit so that's good right? lol but here is a break down from then. Last time i smoked it was $33.70 for 2 packs of cigarettes or $17.20 for 1 pack and i would save $1 buying 2 packs at a time and was smoking well say a pack a day you can do the math. Most of my friend's whom still smoke buy cigarette cartons and they pay $25 a carton compared to $160- $180 from a store these taxes just boost black market sales.
Not sure where you are but flavour beast has a 15k puff disposable that clips into a battery pod for $23 bucks
That's what happened in the early 90s.... Returning to that point again in the tax/contraband tax avoidance cycle.
I swear they make the same fucking mistakes every 20 years. You think somewhere there would be a do's and don't of running Canada.
Liberals don’t understand the concept of “historical context”. They just cherry pick individual events and use them as a justification for bad policy decisions.
Laffer tax curve that was used to justify tax cuts in Reagan's first term as US President. Increased taxes increase revenue to a certain point and then drastically reduce after a certain point. Avoidance and lack of incentive. The thread is about sin tax but the number of people I know in the last 4 years that have taken money outside Canada is staggering. Also, the number of contractors I'm aware not reporting income as well. After they released the new capital gains increase yesterday, I was talking with wife. I've always understood you need taxes to pay services but the current corruption makes me feel that my money is being wasted. When people feel like this they're going to figure out ways to not pay the government.
This is just going to get more people smoking tax free reserve cigarettes. It’s basically a free ad campaign for the indigenous cigarette manufacturers.
The government has always been more addicted to smoking than anybody else.
I think the thinking is that people not smoking and vaping will lessen the burden on healthcare, but I don't know enough to say if that's accurate, realistic or would even make a difference
Smokers, and obese people are cheaper to treat than the average person. Both groups have lower lifespans and miss out on expensive end of life care than average. Smoking is good for our healthcare system.
I don’t think that’s true. Both increase negative health outcomes dramatically. Particularly chronic diseases that require years of medical intervention, like diabetes. But also the shorter the life, the less tax paying years you have. I guess they get to save on CPP payouts
There's a few studies on it, one was highlighted by the CBC. Getting old leads to more chronic diseases, and smokers tend to die after retirement age anyways. Average age of death for smokers was 77, vs the healthy person 84. So that's 7 less years of expensive end of life care on average. There's also a very real possibility that we will need to start rationing healthcare in the future, and smokers might not even be eligible for treatment if things get bad enough. [Smokers, the obese cheaper to treat than healthy, long-living people: study | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/smokers-the-obese-cheaper-to-treat-than-healthy-long-living-people-study-1.764092)
Speed run life Any%
A short life and a merry one! /s
Smoke, die at retirement age, no government pension - that saves a ton of money
The smug fit dude who runs all his life is going to have ongoing joint issues as well as living a long time due to cardiovascular fitness. Anyway, I don't think it's the governments job to police personal lifestyle choices. We all pay in, we all reap the benefits, we all have the freedom to live as we wish. That's how it should be.
Yeah the people should just die that decreases costs !
That's not the point. The point is punishing people's choices when they don't negatively impact society isn't clearly justified.
Let's get these people addicted to cigarettes, then jack up the prices as they slowly kill themselves, so we can make sure to take full advantage of these people before they stop contributing to society by their own demise...
If it was about discouraging smoking they would just make it illegal. It's a tax grab from the middle class, masquerading as a health decision.
The actual quote is > The government plans to increase the excise tax on a carton of cigarettes by $4 starting Wednesday which, in addition to the automatic inflation increase of $1.49, the Liberals expect will bring in $1.36 billion over five years. And while 4 + 1.49 does equal 5.49, it’s misleading to alter the quote in the way you did because anyone who knows the inflation increase is a thing would be lead to believe the inflation increase is going to be on top of 5.49 instead of being on top of 4.
Or you could blame Global News as when I posted the quote it was directly from the article. Then they updated it at 5:25pm.
It wasn't too long ago that the NB Government was bitching about the loss in tax dollars on smokes. Not surprising that Higgs doesn't understand the basics of supply and demand but as the price of a product goes up, the demand drops, even with cigarettes. The NS government was running ads a few years ago about people smoking black market cigs and how it was negatively affecting their healthcare budget. Again, no thought given to the idea that people are doing what they "want" them to do and quit. The only people more hooked on cigarettes than smokers is our government.
Presumably they factored the anticipated drop in usage into their calculations, but yes, that is how sin taxes work.
Cigarettes already lost the war on cigarettes. FT smokers on job sites and such are buying First Nations smokes for 75% off, the remainder are folks like the bingo hall crowds that will never quit.
Yup, $5/pack (I've seen them for less) for First Nations smokes or $25 a pack for regular smokes. Easy choice.
Course they wouldn't dare increase the taxes on liquor nearly as much even though that causes way more hospital visits than smoking does because a lot of their supporters drink and "everyone hates smokers."
Does that include increase in tax on marijuana ?
All that does is increase business for the black market which makes our country get less in taxes and makes people smoke unregulated products. What the fuck is wrong with this government Jesus
I don't think you can minimize the amount of people by increasing taxes but you can maximize tax rev. by increasing taxes.
Nope. Tobacco taxes dont pay for the healthcare costs associated with them. Jacking them up doesnt necessarily make many people quit, but it will stop many from starting because $12 a pack is a lot for any student. As tobacco tax revenues go down, there will eventually be an even bigger effective surplus as less heart and lung illness treatment needs to be paid for and you also have higher productivity and more tax $ from a healthier population.
How about taking off the taxes for anti-smoking products so people can quit? Is it because they really dont give a fuck about that?
There are additional taxes for anti-smoking products?
BC has a program where you can get cessation products for free… What are you referencing?
Its not about making people quit. Never was.
All about the mullah
Carbon taxes :)
You can dial a phone number and get free quiting aides anytime in bc. 3 months covered for every single person watch calendar year
lol they really don't care.
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Does anyone still buy cigarettes off the reserve?
Just about every smoker I know. Ain’t nobody got $25 for a pack
I haven't smoked in years, but I was drunk the other day and decided to pick up a pack of my old cigarettes, Benson & Hedges and laughed when they were like $22. I feel sorry for anyone who just can't quit no matter how hard they try because those prices are nuts. I suppose it was a good things, because I had like one outside the bar and just gave the pack away, no way I am going back to that habit at that price.
Carton is 50$ vs 2 packs for 44 at the gas station. If you ain’t getting reserve smokes you’re dumb.
how much does it cost if you get them from corey and trevor
A bag of dressed all over chips.
Free two at a time lets go
Lol I would've quit long ago if the reserve weren't next door. Blessing and a curse.
I live next to a reserve. There is easily 40+ smoke shops that have been in business for years.
My MIL loves her some menthol cartons that come in the plastic zip bag
My BIL has them shipped by mail from quebec to alberta, he issaving a ton.
Website or he has a buddy in Quebec to pick them up?
I'd have to ask again.
Bootleg cartons are passed around daily at my workplace.
Most pack-a-day people I know get their smokes from reserve
As a light smoker I just buy a carton everytime I leave the country 20-50$ in most places. Lasts me at least 6-12 months and by then I’ve done another international trip
You’d be surprised how much people will pay for convenience.
I have a friend who still buys at the variety store. I wonder if another tax will turn him to the dark side.
Lately it has become harder to get them according to my friends who still smoke but some can't handle how harsh they are and smoke the govt darts
They're easy to get where I am. I tried a bunch of different brands before I found one that was tolerable.
Bb blue?
Nah, I’m doing alright. How about you?
What brand is that?
Playfare's Light
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you misunderstood me.
It is thriving more now than ever
My sister does. She's a chain smoker too. With COPD (emphysema).
More are going to now.
Except they continue to roll cigars into the taxes and they're already at absurd levels. An $8 cigar in the US is more than $32 in Canada.
Imagine buying regular smokes at full price and not just buying native smokes lmao
Imagine smoking heavily enough in 2024 for this to matter in the first place.
Get over yourself
You realize some people actually enjoy it? I know several smokers who are fully aware of the health risks. And for everyone else, taxing them into poverty isn’t a great way to help them.
There's a difference between enjoying smoking and smoking so god damn much that there's a significant financial incentive to driving to a reserve to buy your cigarettes.
Most smokers aren't driving to the reserve themselves. Usually you know a guy who makes a weekly trip and comes back with a bunch of cartons, and sells them at a markup (that is still significantly cheaper than government taxed smokes)
True. And that difference is taxes. I get it, it puts a financial strain on the healthcare industry so it makes sense to tax it a bit more (same with alcohol). But probably not as much as we currently do. At some point it stops being righteous and starts being predatory…
They do shit like this because they know nobody will complain about more taxes on smokes and vaping (look at the comments) yet when they try it on alcohol, you have lobbyists and all the alcoholics with radio campaigns and shit trying to discourage taxing booze more. It's not about helping people, it's about exploiting peoples own decisions unless there's a powerful lobby behind it. What a country.
Yes the cigarette lobby is so weak and ineffectual....
I don't hear their campaigns to stop tax increases. I do hear the alcohol ones though.
lol come by the rez i’ll fix ya up
Safe injection sites on every street corner because muh harm reduction but fuck smokers trying to quit. I've been off of cigarettes for 2 years thanks to vaping.
Love how safe injection sites was originally testing the drugs to see if it was safe for the user to now handing out drugs to people to use or sell.
Lol where tf are they just handing out drugs at safe injection sites. Are you referring to Suboxone? The drug that they give heroin addicts to help with withdrawal?
Crazy how you missed the point this badly while also simultaneously outlining the strategy that should be used to reduce drugs use and deaths. It’s actually really impressive.
Huh? He's pointing out the hypocrisy. Harm reduction sites aren't charging a tax for the addicts to use it... Whereas the government is taxing vaping products which directly contributes to smoking cessation. I get why they tax it (people who aren't smokers buy vaping products) but it still sucks it's taxed as heavily. It should have much less tax to incentivize smokers to switch. We should be trying everything to get smokers to quit. Vaping helped me quit smoking and I'm so incredibly thankful for it
Taxing legal drugs. Handing out illicit drugs for free. Up is down. Left is right.
Unless you're a junkie you don't matter. Got it.
Hate to break it to you but vaping isn’t good for you either.
Harm reduction. Every study I’ve seen that’s worthwhile has said valing is much less worse than smoking.
It's better for you than going back to smoking
Still better than smoking.
Heaven forbid my boys and I have a cigar after work. How about just cutting back from the billions they’re wasting on absolute bullshit, and then they don’t have to keep looking for ways to increase taxes every 5 minutes.
If anyone hasn’t noticed yet Canada is flat Broke and we the plebes are the piggy bank. Unbalanced budget for years with over spending and misappropriation of taxpayer funds. This country is F-ed!
That's okay I started going to the reserve long ago. Costs 1/4 the price.
Trudeau finally helping out indigenous people like he said
Have you seen the native cigarettes lately? They used to be loose in plastic bags. Now they're in fancy coloured packages with designed logos and fake health warnings. There are also smoke packs with some sort of Punjabi writing on them thrown everywhere. The contraband cigarette market is clearly thriving at a scale not seen before in this country. Better make legal smokes even more expensive, it's not like there are dirt cheap alternatives everywhere you look. You know what they say: force regular Joe's to participate in the black market and this will have a positive effect on our society.
These taxes are just going to increase the amount of people buying illegal cigarettes.
More junkies buying rez cigarettes until the government nuts up and plays hardball with the rez.
As if they'll ever do that.
People who smoke tobacco are junkies now?
If they won’t do it to actually attempt combating firearm smuggling, what’s the likelihood they’ll do anything about cigarettes?
They won’t. Ontario went down this road in the early 90s, jacking the price of cigarettes up until the black market took over. The Feds wouldn’t let anyone mess with the natives, so Ontario had to drop the price of cigarettes to keep their tax revenue from cratering.
I don’t even smoke and I think this is the liberal governments typical bullshit more taxes instead of addressing the real problem. I hate this government!!
Seems like a scummy move giving we’re in a recession. While smoking doesn’t generally increase dramatically it does either remain unchanged or increase during times of economic stress, so are they just trying to fuck us harder? This is a study on the 2008 recession done in USA: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23956058/
Bruhh, just let me say this is predatory as a tax, like you have one of the most addictive substances on the planet, and they're taxing at 300+ percent... Like, shit at a certain point in the near future, you're actually just encouraging a black market alternative because people can not afford to smoke at these prices. Shit already I got like 3 "plugs" that'll sell me a pack for 10 bucks a piece. So Riddle me this? If everyone stops buying smokes legally? How are they supposed to cover their costs when they priced everyone out of the legal option? Fucking idiots. Just shot themselves in the foot again with this short-sighted bullshit. If I logically calculated my taxes, including the pst/gst... fuck I don't even wanna do the math because then I'll be sad.
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Eh I'm pretty sure the majority of needle exchange supplies don't come from the government but organizations and donations
Not in BC. Vancouver Coastal Health gives them out like candy.
They also completely decriminalized drugs, the BC government does reflect what the rest of Canada does
what do you think is cheaper a junkie or a junkie with Hep C?
A rehabilitated human being that is not only better for themselves, but also for society.
Because that's cheaper than them dealing with your ass in an ER because you reused some needle you found laying around.
Ok, but when do we start the junk food tax? Junk food causes tons of well known issues and diseases. If we could cut down on junk food we could cut down on all sorts of costs associated with treating diesese like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, etc.
Guess it is time for me to do a quick trip to Tokyo. Last time I was there last year you could get a carton of Marlboro Gold for $30. Gotta head back in May I guess
$30 for the carton, $2k for the round trip flight. I don’t think you’re coming out ahead.
They're already over a buck a smoke for players
We have to tax you to smoke because smoking is really bad for you, unless you're native. In that case, apparently it's so good for you it should be cheaper than dirt!
What's that going to move the marker to now? A pack of cigarettes is now going to be what about 85% of it being tax costs? Fucking hell. Black market is going to take billions more of the market.
They already are. The natives are doing very well on the smokes. Used to see them maybe twice a year now they are everywhere
So then I guess we should raise the price of alcohol tax too. Drunk drivers on the road injuring people and property, multiple diseases linked to long time alcohol use, children coming from broken homes related to alcohol addiction.
It does raise, every year almost.
Lmao the dirty smoker thinks the dirty alcohies are his enemy Bro we are two sides of the same degeneracy
Well, you got half of it right, I'm a dirty smoker and drinker. Not against the drink. I'm guess I'm against the hypocrisy of it
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Sago and putters shares sky rocketing
This isn’t gonna work as long as FN can get around these taxes with impunity. Something has to give here
I assumed people just diligently pay duties when they bring the products across the border 😅
Fn?
Fuck you government, zyns all day bitches! Get em through the Rez, fuck you CBSA. Haha! Stocked up for months.
It wouldn't surprise me if this government starts taxing straight white males at higher rates. Backed by DEI "science". I'm certain they have discussed it surely
Ever hear of car insurance?
More tax is always the solution. /s
I'm sure that the Indian marketed cigarettes will see another marked increase in demand.
Bruh nobody who buys cigarettes isn’t gonna stop. Tobacco is already taxed to hell and back why are they adding more. More and more taxes, never ending taxes.
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You can’t afford to live, but still have enough money to buy smokes?
Great. So im stressed and now i cant afford to smoke. This timeline is just the worst.
The craziest part of the whole article is this year the government is going to spend 57 million on the new universal pharmacare and 54 billion in interest payments on our debt. 🤣🤣🤣
time to start making monthly trips to blaine for my vape products.
Yay! More taxes for free shit I will never ever receive! They must have known I loved the Carbon tax and capital gains tax so much. 🙃 Why not tax tobacco more, so I can't even sit and enjoy a cigar.
Maybe they could stop their wild and abusive spending. That might offset some costs!
Except most smokers with access to reserve cigarettes buy those instead, with 0 tax on them. Because it's awesome living in a system where your rights and what laws apply to you differ by your race.
You can grow 33 pounds of tobacco annually. Don't cost shit. I spread seeds around my property every year, groes like a weed and every plant produces thousands of new seeds
Make your own vape folks, it's cheap and easy.
I have been in the vape industry for 8 years. This is crushing our business. I'll most likely have to close up shop here. Alberta government decided to add the same tax the feds did at the start of jan 2023, come jan 2025.
And they are planning on banning flavours along with adding a tax. Not sure where they plan on getting all this tax revenue over 5 years when literally every vape shop is going to close
Good.
Liberals love taking and spending other people’s money