Drugs: A moral decision, a matter of choice, or a national health risk?

[Dystopia]

The reason that manufacturing of trafficking of prohibited substances is so lucrative is that there's literally -no- competition, and no one skimming your till. That's really all there is to it. Let people compete in an open arena with all available support and you're going to see margins drop further, while a higher quality product is delivered - and as a result cartels will be crushed by "legitimate business". Trafficking won't be an issue so much as embezzling and corporate tax fraud. All of this assumes our system and situation...may be different where you are. Any cigarette cartels overrunning your neighboring countries governments over there?

Not any cartel that I'm aware of, but buying smuggled cigarettes has become quite common, as well as switching to rollies, natural leaf tobacco and pipes because they are less expensive...

I don't know what the price of cigarettes is in America, but here in Portugal a pack of Marlboros costs 4.50€ and it has been rising constantly over the years, I remember when I was a teen and started it costed 2.80€.

The problem here is that you're comparing different substances - In the case pointed I think heavier drugs like cocaine or heroin would most certainly be expensive by various reasons - Either to not incentive people to consume them, since they can ruin your life easily if you're not careful (and by ruining I mean worse effects that the ones cigs bring), or because the quality of those drugs and the feeling you get when you're high are so good that you got to pay for it - If you go to a dealer, you'll find out that heroin is probably the most expensive drug, and the cheapest is weed - Not that I tried heroin, but it's generally the case - I don't think shops would do any different, specially considering heroin is very addicting, there's no reason to not rise prices - When it comes to addictive products, there's a tendency of continuous demand even if the price goes up, so it's pretty smart to raise taxes there - Even if it is somehow unethical.