With ISIS gone, Iraqis are once again able to smoke cigarettes. Rukmini Callimachi from the New York Times reports:
1. Yesterday, my team made it to the furthest point I've gone northwest of Mosul to the locality of Badoosh, where we interviewed residents: pic.twitter.com/N6m49qGf1d
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
2. I noticed that everywhere we went in Badoosh, residents were "wearing" packs of cigarettes, like this gentleman: pic.twitter.com/xFGBLU55up
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
3. His name is Mohamed Ahmed Saleh, and he's a cow herder, and he asked my colleague to light his cigarette when we got out of the car: pic.twitter.com/KPUHoseaHi
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
4. His village near Badoosh was liberated 10 days ago & he launched into a diatribe about IS & how happy he is to be able to smoke again pic.twitter.com/DWELiETHAk
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
You see, “…smoking for this man=freedom”:
5. Let me just say that I'm a California girl through & through & I hate 2nd hand smoke but it was obvious that smoking for this man=freedom pic.twitter.com/05uGKM0EUr
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
6. That's when Mohamed began describing the lengths he took to find cigarettes under ISIS & the thrill it gave him to break their rules. pic.twitter.com/WyI15Kp0ee
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
As for the price of a pack of cigarettes, the cost is only slightly higher in Mosul than New York City:
7. This brand was the only 1 smuggled into ISIS territory. A packet used to cost 750 dinars or $0.63. Under ISIS, it spiked to 20,000 or $17 pic.twitter.com/cLYk9Pqaoi
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 20, 2017
As we told you yesterday, Mayor de Blasio bragged yesterday that the price of a pack of smokes in the city will rise to $13:
We're going to raise the floor on the cost of a pack of cigarettes from $10.50 to $13 — the highest price in the country.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 19, 2017
We wonder what our freedom-loving hero from Mosul would say about this?
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Related:
What could go wrong? Bill de Blasio’s REALLY proud of how much cigarettes are about to cost in NYC https://t.co/mdqDZPbaIt
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) April 19, 2017
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