"Pan D.Modium" <pandemodium@nym.alias.net> writes, in part:
2. Tobacco companies will cave in to the states on liability for medical costs and declare bankruptcy. The few remaining small companies not party to the suits will see themselves targeted after prices on a pack of cigarettes rises to 1000% of the current price. Two years from now, cigarettes will be almost impossible to get and result in smuggling on a scale that dwarfs cocaine and marijuana trafficing.
Some state prisons (Utah? Minnesota?) are smoke-free. Cigarettes are a choice smuggling item. I vaguely recall a price of $200 per cigarette (but note that, in a prison economy, the "dollar" is only loosely connected to reality. I can imagine a National Smokers Association: "When cigarettes are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigarettes" -- or, somewhat more appropriately, "you can have my cigarette when you pry my cold dead fingers off of it." Martin Minow (non-smoker, other vices not discussed)