The black market for illegal booze and cigarettes is in the billions. It’s not that people are buying it from illegal dealers. It’s that they make their way on to legit shelves or venues and people buy them without knowing. That could be stolen, smuggled in without paying duty, or counterfeit.

Basically levies or artificially raised prices placed on anything makes the lucrative to criminals. Same goes for designer clothes, handbags, razor blades, phones, trainers, anything really. In order to reduce the criminal element really you need to make it not very profitable. Criminals don’t tend to sell carrots because they’re basically worthless. Taxing it isn’t going to remove crime. It will require continued police enforcement.