The Left’s vice double standard
THE same people who want higher taxes on legal vices such as smoking and soft drinks seem to want illegal activities such as drug taking made easier, writes Caroline Marcus.
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ONE of the features of tonight’s Budget will be a new crack unit to clamp down on the thriving black market in illegal smokes.
This Tobacco Taskforce will target the gangs and crime syndicates trading in the “chop chop”, illegal tobacco imports and stolen ciggies which rob the government of an estimated $600 million in potential revenue each year.
As to why this black market is flourishing? Well, that’s easy.
The price of cigarettes has climbed more than 340 per cent in the past dozen years, a spike helped along by the annual 12.5 per cent increase in tobacco excise over the next four years announced by Treasurer Scott Morrison in his first Budget back in 2016.
The average packet of smokes now costs $35.
While it’s hard to argue against any plan to target the crims who are now exploiting cash strapped smokers, this booming underground economy was the inevitable byproduct of such drastic taxation measures on what is still a legal product.
Look, too, at the approach to other lawful vices like alcohol and even sugar.
Australians pay some of the world’s highest taxes on booze — we shell out more than double the OECD average on beer excises, for example.
True, the government will axe a craft beer tax in tonight’s Budget — which currently slugs producers 40 per cent more just for using smaller kegs — but there are already warnings from brewers it won’t necessarily lead to cheaper prices.
Meanwhile, the Northern Territory has become one of the first jurisdictions in the world - alongside Scotland and Canada - to legislate a floor price on alcohol. In other words, goodbye cheap wine.
Then there’s the sugar tax proposed by the Greens and some health groups — already introduced in several countries around the world, including the UK and parts of the US — which, despite the underwhelming evidence of its actual effectiveness, would increase the price of soft drinks by 20 per cent.
That’s despite our consumption of sweetened drinks declining, anyway, in direct contrast to the increasing rates of obesity.
NT’s FLOOR PRICE ON ALCOHOL
And while these may seem like marginal issues, the amounts are huge. Smokers alone pay in an extra $9 billion a year in excise taxes, which is no small amount given a budget deficit last year of around $29 billion for 2017-18.
But the irony is that at the same time we’re seeing these publicly-sanctioned crackdowns on legal vices, there’s a converse push to make it easier for people to indulge in very illegal ones.
Last month, the ACT Government backed pill-testing at Canberra’s Groovin the Moo festival with police directed to deliberately avoid the area around the tent where samples were being examined.
Of 85 ecstasy pills tested, two contained substances linked to mass overdoses overseas while a whopping half were cut with ingredients such as paint.
Those running the trial hailed this a success, yet admitted only five people actually threw out their drugs in the amnesty bins provided.
Even festival goers say such schemes could promote a sense of false security, leading to — you guessed it — more drug-taking.
The conflicting messages being given to the youngest members of our society are not only confusing, they’re downright deadly. You also have to feel sorry for the cops, who must be utterly demoralised by all this.
CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL TOBACCO
On the weekend, NSW Police reported one of their biggest drug busts at the Midnight Mafia Music Festival in Sydney’s Olympic Park, with 3500 pills seized and 13 people charged with drug supply, including one woman allegedly caught with 1600 ecstasy pills and cocaine.
Detective Chief Inspect Gus Viera, commander of the South West Metropolitan Region Enforcement Squad, said it was clear their messaging was “not getting through.”
It’s no secret that such festivals attract a disproportionately high number of young people looking to get shitfaced, which must surely beg the question of how good the music is in the first place if a chemical high is required to appreciate it.
NO APPETITE FOR DRUG TESTING IN NSW
Part of the reason the young attendees turn to drugs that a pill costs as little as $25, far cheaper than the legal high of a few drinks once you factor in those aforementioned taxes.
Pill-testing is not the only state government-supported madness; from next month, ice users will be able to shoot up the dangerous drug in a supervised injecting room in Melbourne.
Federally, the Greens are pushing for the full legalisation of cannabis for personal use — not just medicinal — despite warnings from medical groups about serious health risks, including psychosis.
Culturally, it feels very much like vice has fallen prey to the same sort of cultural Marxist thinking that now dominates in so many other spheres of life: Traditional indulgences like a drink and a smoke are demonised, only to be replaced with poisons far darker.
Economically, it is almost as if the government is saying that if we can’t tax ourselves healthy, we’ll have a crack at taxing our way out of debt.
Caroline Marcus is a journalist with Sky News