“I’ve Been Smoking Heavily For 10 Years Without Ever Buying A Single Cigarette In A Depanneur”

Let’s call him Robert, 58 years old. A big smoker: one carton and a half per week since way back. He started smoking at a very young age, while he was still a teenager.

One and a half carton means 12 packs a week or 624 per year, or $ 6,650 at the average legal price of $ 88.67 per carton in Quebec.

However, Robert does not pay that much. Last year, he paid only $ 825 for his annual consumption, a substantial saving of 88%, or $ 5,825!

The reason: for the past 10 years, he has only been smoking contraband tobacco. And he never had any issue or problem finding it.

Under the condition of not revealing his identity, Robert agreed to tell DepQuébec about his penchant for contraband tobacco and to give us a glimpse of the still vibrant and largely unknown black market.

“I’ll never pay $ 10 for a pack of cigarettes. Never!”

Robert admits that price is the main driver as to why he opts for contraband instead of the legal product.

“Even though I smoke like a chimney, it has been 10 years since I bought a single cigarette at the depanneur simply because I will never pay $ 10 for a pack of cigarettes. From the moment the carton reached $ 45 in the mid-2000s , I turned to native cigarettes ever since”, says Robert who now enjoys a peaceful retirement after spending decades working for a large corporation.

As for the quality, Robert admits that contraband is not as good as legal tobacco, but he got used to it.

Even when, he says, he smokes a legal cigarette once in a while, he does not enjoy it particularly.

Contraband supply: more risks than before 

In the 2000s, research conducted by the Quebec Convenience Stores Association (QCSA) revealed that Quebec smokers in general were not afraid or concerned of buying contraband tobacco on a native reserve or from underground resellers. Today, however, things have changed. Even though he lives only 15 minutes from the Kahnawake reserve, Robert does not venture over there anymore.

“For the last four or five years, the laws have become much tougher, so I leave that to others. I have a friend who has been caught coming out of the reserve with contraband tobacco in his vehicle. He had to pay several thousand dollars in fines. There are white trucks from Revenu Québec with red flashing lights that roam around the reserve and arrest suspected clients. Since I saw this, I avoid going to the reserve because I do not want to have my vehicle seized, ” he confesses.

To get around this obstacle, Robert gets his supplies from a dealer near his home. The latter has been reselling contraband for years but only within a small circle of trusted friends and this, for the sole purpose of paying his own consumption. That is why Robert and his dealer are basically immune from arrest, seizure and prosecution.

Price and quality: years of stability

When Robert buys tobacco, he usually takes four cartons at $ 13 each, two of which he sells to a friend at $ 15, which ultimately costs him $ 11 per carton for his personal consumption, a tiny fraction of the legal price ($ 88.67).

Indeed, should Robert buys 10 cartons, it would only cost him $ 100, or $ 10 a piece, which is about the price of a single legal carton … amazing, isn’t it?

These are very low prices even for contraband tobacco: in the 2000s, the average carton was sold $ 15 and up to $ 20-25 from an off-reserve reseller. This means that the supply is substantial and that, despite pressure from the authorities, there is no product shortage on reserves.

Most of the time, Robert places the extra cartons in the freezer to keep them fresh. The product quality, he says, has been pretty stable over the years.

“I always opt for brown-tipped cigarettes with blond tobacco in ziploc bags. The quality varies: some deliveries are better than others, but usually they are never dried: on the contrary, they are sometimes too moist or compacted. We can see that they have been bagged or compacted too quickly. I have rarely seen any stuff that don’t belong: it is mostly fine cut tobacco in general, “he said.

Robert can thus satisfy his craving for tobacco at low prices, having saved nearly $ 60,000 in 10 years. But it is not everyone, he says, who follows his example.

“I have several friends who turned their back on native cigarettes because they can’t stand the taste. They prefer paying the big price in a depanneur or to smoke less, but to me, tobacco is tobacco. For the price I’m paying, it’s worth going for contraband. I’m not going to stop and I’ll continue to take advantage of it. “

At only $ 1.65 a pack rather than $ 11, contraband tobacco will likely remain very attractive to many smokers. In response to hefty government fines and increased repression, the contraband industry is also adapting. Consumers and resellers now keep a lower profile so that they can go on with their business without any disruption.

Low prices and easy access to the product confirm the resilience of the black market. As for the convenience stores, which are subjected daily to the heavy burden of a fussy regulation, which are harshly controlled and inspected and hand over a fortune in taxes to the government, they continue to see their volume erode in favor of smugglers.

Whatever the government in power, this will never change in Quebec.