Dark Times Ahead - sort of off-topic

[Martin Minow]

"Pan D.Modium" <pandemodium at 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)