New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Conducts 'Test Marketing' to Ban Tobacco

Via the New York Post:

The pro-legal weed Hochul administration is quietly trying to fire up support for a complete ban on the sale of tobacco products in New York, The Post has learned.

The state Health Department commissioned a new survey aimed at gauging support for an all-out prohibition — despite Gov. Hochul’s failure to secure support from state legislators to include a ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products in the yet-to-be-approved state budget.

“What is your opinion about a policy that would end the sale of all tobacco products in New York within 10 years?” were among the questions asked last week in the “New York Local Opinion Leaders Survey,” examined by the Post.

There’s a lot to be said about this nonsense.

First of all, let’s take a moment to appreciate how calculated nearly all politicians are (with the notable and glaring exception of Trump, who lets it rip, for better or worse, off the cuff).

If Hochul believes that a tobacco ban is justified under public health auspices, why would she need to expend the time, effort, and money to do this kind of “test marketing”?

This is the kind of finger-in-the-wind behavior that people absolutely hate in politicians. No effort can ever be undertaken, no matter how morally correct, until it has been vetted through polling or focus-group testing (which not coincidentally enriches the consulting class) to gauge its impact on a politician’s popularity among the electorate. Then, even if an initiative is shown to be popular, it has to be run by the donors, who matter more than any entity in the political process, for the green light.

Continuing:

It’s obvious the Health Department is “test marketing” potential new smoking policies, and such surveys are not typically funded by taxpayers but through private companies, think tanks, or political campaigns, an Albany insider said…

Kent Sopris, president of the New York Association of Convenience Store Owners, predicted a ban would put many stores out of business but wouldn’t stop tobacco use because smokers would just buy cigarettes out of state, online, or illegally on the black market.   

“I think it would be bizarre for the state to create another category of illegal product that could lead to more conflict between law enforcement and the community,” he said.

Anyone who’s ever smoked himself/herself, or has friends or family who have, understands that simply banning tobacco will do nothing to dissuade an addict from seeking out their fix. Nic fits are serious.

So, if and when New York bans tobacco sales, it’s all going to go underground and simply feed black market criminality. Violent crime will increase as illicit cigarette vendors compete for territory. All tax revenue from cigarette sales will be lost. The proceeds will benefit criminal gangs. The police will inevitably be forced to intervene, and New Yorkers will be treated to endless recurrences of the kind of police-civilian confrontations that resulted in the 2014 killing of Eric Garner over the sale of loose cigarettes.

How stupid.

But what would you expect from a woman who prominently wears a “vaxxed” necklace and thinks God wants you to inject yourself with experimental mRNA products from shady pharmaceutical companies?