The illicit tobacco trade is running rampant, say some members of Congress, and they re introducing the aptly named Smuggled Tobacco Prevention (STOP) Act as a solution to this black market business. Cosponsored by an additional 118 members of the House of Representatives, the STOP Act hopes to recoup at least $5 billion in lost tobacco tax revenues while also keeping contraband cigarettes off the market. In order to accomplish this, all tobacco products manufactured in or imported to the U.S. would contain a unique identification code that would provide officials with useful tracking information in order to distinguish real tax markings from counterfeit ones.
Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), one of the act s main sponsors, added, Tobacco products are the single largest, illegally trafficked, legal product on the planet.
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross says that such an alarming statistic should remind us that if a ban on menthol cigarettes were to be implemented, the cigarette black market would only continue to grow. As it happens, the fate of menthol cigarettes will be decided early next year. Encouraging sophisticated criminal elements to smuggle massive numbers of illicit cigarettes by banning menthol would harm our public health especially our kids health, since the people who sell smuggled cigarettes do not ask for identification or age. I m glad the legislators who proposed this campaign appreciate this additional benefit, aside from the obvious revenue bump.