smokers tax

[jsarno]

Originally Posted by firstdown

It is about as realistic as taxing cigs to curb use which you say it will. So then it would curb driving habits and a start to reducing green house gases.

While I applaud the effort for thinking outside the box, this is just not realistic.
Taxing cigs / raising prices has already shown to reduce smoking (as a previous link proved) yet taxing gas / raising prices has shown to not even phase america because we have to use something to fuel our transportation. Right now, we have no other option. But you fail to recognize that we NEED gas (or some other option to fuel our transportation) but we do not in any form or fashion need Cigarettes. They are completely useless to society and in fact are actually a huge negative on society in terms of cancer and other expensive health issues they cause.
No one has been successful in saying "well if you tax cigs, then what about..." (except maybe alcohol which are similar vices). I'd like to see cigs at $10 a pack. Obviously people are too dumb to stop smoking on their own (or too addicted), but if you raise the price to amazing levels, more and more would quit, and those that are suffering smoking related illnesses would be much less of a burden on society.