Fifty dollars for a pack of cigarettes!

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Fifty dollars for a pack of cigarettes! This shows the real market price of something if it is banned. What would be the price for a .38 S & W Special if it was banned? People would be building guns in their basements and selling them for thousands of dollars. Then we would have a "war against guns" like the war against prostitution, drugs, and other vices. Vices are not crimes.

Charles Tolleson
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Robb Phillips 33, of Cumberland, Maryland, a former corrections officer, has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from prisoners to smuggle cigarettes as well as other items into the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland (FCI-C) and selling them for a large profit.

He was hired as a corrections office in July 20, 2000. In November of the next year, he started working as a teacher in the Education Department at FCI-C. Ever since April 15, 2006, cigarettes have been banned in federal prisons and were classified as contraband. Not too long after the ban had been put in place, one of the inmates asked Phillips to smuggle in cigarettes and he said he would pay Phillips $50 for each pack or $1000 for a carton. He also told Phillips that he would make arrangements so that Phillips could be paid outside of the prison. On or about July 2006, Phillips did bring five or six packs of cigarettes to the prison, gave them to the inmate, and was paid his $50 a pack.By the time the scheme came to an end, he was bringing in as many as 50 packs a week as well as other contraband such as snuff, for which he was paid $50 a can. All in all he received in excess of $14,000 in payments.When he is sentenced, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/445060/former_federal_corrections_officer.htmlSource: U.S Attorneys Office http://www.usdoj.gov/