Exploiting Human Nature

"The manufacture and distribution of this illegal commodity fuels the growth of organized criminal networks, and the viability of this illegal commodity results in losses of federal and provincial taxes and excise duties and undermines significant government investment and public health objectives.
"These illegal products are then transported through a national pipeline for sale to consumers as a cheaper alternative to legitimate tobacco products, thereby making it more accessible to youth."
RCMP briefing document

 
Released under access to information legislation, data have been published meant originally as a briefing document forwarded to the Canadian public safety minister. It outlined a number of statistics, the most interesting among them perhaps the figure of 50 contraband tobacco manufacturers whose production lines operate on First Nations territories in Ontario and Quebec.

Tax-free cigarettes. Illegal, of course, but widely available on a casual drive through those reserves. Reserves whose welcome signs state that on driving onto reserve land one is entering 'national' territory of First Nations. As nations they feel little obligation to obey Canadian law which the manufacturing of illegal tobacco products states is illegal.

Tim Smith/Brandon Sun

Illegal as well is their sale. With no revenues accruing to the government. Because the enterprise is illegal, it represents criminal activity. And because the manufacture of contraband is illegal it attracts criminal gangs, both local and international in scope. With everyone concerned, the manufacturers, the dealers and the gangs eager to obtain as much of a piece of the revenue-pie as possible.

Proceeds from these activities also fund and enable other types of criminal activities. Ranging from the smuggling of contraband liquor, to illegal weapons. And perhaps most problematical, human smuggling. Local criminals make their living in this way and foreign groups, including foreign groups specializing in violent war-mongering and terrorism, also get their cut of the action.

The product sells, it is popular because it is far less expensive than the legitimate product. The very fact that taxes are removed also removes an enormous part of the cost of purchase. The creation of a 50-member RCMP anti-contraband force appears to have slowed opportunity down somewhat, but the trafficking of contraband tobacco, illicit drugs and firearms and human smuggling all interrelated, continue.

It isn't only the government that would like to be able to pull the plug on these immoral, illegal and dangerous activities. Dangerous to human health from the consuming perspective, and dangerous to safety and security from the perspective of upholding the law and as well the predictable violent events that occur as a result of gang-related competition. Revenue loss also translates to higher social services costs.

The Kahnawake reserve in Quebec and Six Nations reserves in Ontario are identified as the sites hosting those 50 contraband operations. Allied with another ten manufacturers on the American side of the Akwesasne Mohawk territories, straddling the borders of Ontario, Quebec and New York State: "giving rise to jurisdictional and legal challenges between federal, provincial and state laws."

The document points out that the aforementioned challenges are being exploited by organized crime groups. A 2012 Criminal Intelligence Service Canada national threat assessment identified roughly 58 organized crime groups embroiled across the country, some 35 of their number located within Central Canada.

Tobacco is a legal product. It is also, for many a lethal product, a fact that is widely recognized and well enough known. To prohibit its use on the basis of its being a carcinogen, to protect users from the consequences of long-term use, and to husband the medical-hospitalization reserves of the country thereby is unworkable.

As much as the market for illegal tobacco hugely benefits itself at the present time with a legal product produced and distributed illegally, the situation would become even more fiercely competitive and dangerous as even greater numbers of crime syndicates would become involved.

But the cheaper cost and availability of the illegal product ensnares youth, the young who believe nothing untoward would ever impact their lives. With less cash to spare, they form one segment of the population eager to advantage themselves by the procurement of a less expensive product.

No one will ask them to prove their age at purchase.