8-14-12: Smuggling Cigarettes

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Franchot-0814.mp3

If this were the 1960s, I might have been smoking a cigarette while doing this broadcast.  But it’s not the 60s, the risks of smoking are known, taxes are much higher … and the number of cigarettes being smuggled into Maryland to evade those taxes is higher as well.  According to Maryland's comptroller, Peter Franchot, the number of contraband cigarettes seized during the past fiscal year is much higher than in previous years--and he suspects Maryland is catching only about 1 percent of the untaxed cigarettes that flow through the state.

Peter Franchot joins Sheilah in the studio to discuss the issue.