Pubdate: Wed, 20 May 1998 Source: Waco Tribune-Herald Contact: Author: Editorial Board, Rowland Nethaway, Senior Editor. BLACK MARKETERS Cigarette makers have voiced alarm that a jump in cigarette taxes proposed in a major tobacco bill in Congress would cause black marketing of cheap smokes here. Authorities in Europe and Canada aasert that U.S. tobacco interests should know all about that. They accuse them of doing it. In Europe, authorities accuse American cigarette makers of cut-rate sales to black marketers who evade taxes. In Canada, authorities are convinced that smuggled U.S. cigarettes being sold there at a nifty profit in the states. U.S. tobacco interests make it sound like this is all underworld stuff. It may be, but feeding the cigarette underworld are the overlords of over-the-counter sales. The issue of cigarette taxes should rise or fall on its own merits, not on the basis of a phony appeal about illegal sales. If Big Tobacco wants to find black marketers, say the folks in Europe and Canada, it should look in the mirror. - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett