WHY BAD LAWS ARE GOOD

I stopped smoking years ago, but the Mohawk cigarette factories of
Quebec and Ontario tempt me to revisit the habit. What a pity defiant
native manufacturers of contraband can't come up with a forbidden
product less detrimental to my health. I would love to show my support
for their sense of sovereign entitlement by becoming their customer.

I don't mean support for their sense of sovereign entitlement as
aboriginals. I mean support for their sense of sovereign entitlement
as Canadians.

I'm not supporting a Mohawk sense of entitlement to roll their own
smokes because the law is Canadian and they aren't; I'm supporting it
because Mohawks are Canadian and restrictive laws shouldn't be. What I
support is the right of individuals in free countries to grow,
manufacture, eat, drink, smoke or shoot up every substance, including
substances I consider utterly idiotic for anyone to implant, inject,
inhale or ingest.

Assuming they're non-contagious. No bubonic plague,
please.

But even though I'd let consenting adults trade in pelts, pills, poker
chips, precious stones and prostitutes anywhere, I know that the state
sticking its big nose into bedrooms and kitchens and TV rooms has one
advantage. Government interventions create economic niches.

When I landed in this country more than half a century ago, my
earliest job was pushing a cab. I chose the night shift because the
money was better. The day shift had the supermarket and hospital runs,
the doddering pensioners, shopping bags, suitcases and two-bit tips.
At night, customers were looking for action.

It was one of the first English words I learned 50 years ago. "What
means 'action?'"

"Booze and broads."

Buying alcohol in "Toronto the Good" was tied to a liquor licence.
After the government store closed, you couldn't get a drink for love
or money. Or rather, you could only get one for love or money,
courtesy of your friendly cabbie.

Some colleagues would pay a fin apiece to load up on mickeys of rye,
scotch, vodka or gin during the day at the liquor store, then sell the
13-oz. bottles for a double sawbuck at night. A $15 profit was nothing
to sneeze at in 1957, when the meter in the taxi started at 35c.

Some drivers pushed both booze and broads. I did neither. The girls
hanging out around Jarvis and Dundas were nice -- especially Lillian,
who was forever singing "I ain't misbehavin' / I'm savin' / my love
for you" -- but they could also be volatile, maudlin, moody and high
maintenance. Nor did transporting fragile mickeys in the trunk appeal
to me. My specialty was the floating crap game. The house gave you a
deuce per customer, and so did fares when you dropped them off. Some
were good for a fin.

"Hey, Mac, where's the action?" "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean what do I mean? Action! Don't play
dumb."

"Are you a mark or a narc?" The night shift made me a quick study in
English.

"Jeez, you think I'm a cop? Listen, buddy, relax."

And he'd slip you a fin, which no cop would do. But some cabbies were
still busted by undercover cops. With the authorities it was better to
be safe than sorry.

Somebody might say that the safest way would have been not to handle
contraband sex, gambling or liquor. But that would have made no
economic sense. Unlike natives, immigrant cabbies couldn't defy the
robber state. However, the government's designation of a "black
market" immediately raised our economic value.

The black market doesn't exist. That's the first thing to know about
it. Markets are colourless. "Black market" is what the authorities
call whatever segment of the free market they want to restrict for
whatever reason.

One reason is revenue. It's the word governments use for what they'd
call "extortion" or "robbery" if perpetrated by private persons.
Another reason is moral control -- not as pervasive as shariah, but
coming from the same impulse. Sin taxes herald the state insinuating
itself into the bedrooms, nurseries, kitchens and finished basements
of the nation.

When it comes to squeezing subjects dry, modern states are almost as
uninhibited as empires of antiquity used to be. Our rulers, too, use
excise taxes and government monopolies to discourage or chastise their
citizens, having the gall to mask their high-handedness with the moral
veneer of upholding virtue. Just as princes, prelates and tyrants did
in times past, parliamentary politicians justify expropriation by the
linguistic device of calling selected economic activities "smuggling"
and selected goods "contraband."

Contemporary elites put a lab coat on the Sheriff of Nottingham. Their
gendarmes hide behind resource czars, health commissars and ecological
tribunes to horn in on the transactions of free traders.

"Cigarettes are unhealthy for you. Pay me a tax!"

Why, dear government? Will paying you make cigarettes healthier for
me?

Still, here's the silver lining. Bad laws are good. Taxes and
prohibitions enable natives to make a living, just as they enabled me
once. Criminalizing conduct makes it pay. Ask ex-cabbies. Ask the
Mohawks. Ask the Medellin Cartel.