The illegal cigarette market in a socioeconomically deprived inner-city area: the case of the South Bronx: Table 1

Abstract

The present study highlights the importance of examining the illegal cigarette market in socioeconomically deprived regions of the US, where tax avoidance and black market activities appear to far exceed levels found elsewhere in the country including Chicago and New York City at large.

Cigarette trafficking in five northeastern US cities

“…Because cigarettes sold on many reservations do not have tax stamps, this suggests that the 2011 state regulations restricting wholesalers from selling untaxed cigarettes30 to reservations have deterred trafficking from reservations. This may also explain the increase in Virginia-sourced cigarettes compared with the relatively lower estimates of Virginia-sourced cigarettes found by Chernick and Merriman15 and is consistent with littered pack patterns found in the South Bronx before and immediately after these regulations 16…”

“…The proportion of packs without stamps in NYC (15.7%) is considerably lower than reported in the recent Chernick and Merriman15 study of NYC (24.0%) and the recent Kurti et al 16 study of the South Bronx (42%). Because cigarettes sold on many reservations do not have tax stamps, this suggests that the 2011 state regulations restricting wholesalers from selling untaxed cigarettes30 to reservations have deterred trafficking from reservations.…”

“…Furthermore, data suggest that cross-border purchasing decreases over time, presumably because smokers find cross-border shopping too inconvenient or more smokers quit 13 14. Despite the fact that a majority of NYC smokers report purchasing their cigarettes from NYC retailers, prior studies of littered cigarette packs in NYC commonly find packs with either no stamp or stamps from distant very-low-tax states 15 16. These studies suggest that organised cigarette trafficking is significant.…”

“…For this calculation, we used state-level average cigarette prices for non-generic brands from the 2011 Tax Burden on Tobacco 25. Non-generic prices were used since premium brands constitute a large majority (∼90%) of trafficked cigarettes 16. Because NYC includes its own cigarette tax in addition to the NYS tax, we used the average NYC price per pack ($11.13) from the 2011 NYC subsample of the NYS Adult Tobacco Survey.…”

The Intended and Unintended Consequences of a Legal Measure to Cut the Flow of Illegal Cigarettes Into New York City: The Case of the South Bronx

“…In accord with past littered pack studies, 17,18,20,21 we weighted the proportions of each tax stamp category by the inverse number of packs found in each census tract to represent the South Bronx population. This measure weighted all of the census tracts equally.…”