I understand what your saying but consider the following: Are eggs good or bad for you? Is milk good or bad for you? Should the bottom of the food pyramid be grains, pasta, bread etc? is corn a "vegetable" Is dietary cholesterol good or bad for you? Is fat good or bad for you? At some point gob'ment got ALL OF THESE THINGS wrong. Health science isn't settled, and varies by person/ethnicity. The gob'ment often tries to incentivize poor decisions because it's in their own interest, or they're deluded into thinking that it's in yours (mask, washing your hands a billion times, taking an experimental gene altering "vaccine" for a flu that almost certainly won't kill you) etc. It's not clear that the sin taxes cut tobacco use; that's not clear at all. The people I knew who smoked prior to the obama cig taxes continued to do it, they just bitched about the cost more, or ordered them online, or at some reservation, or "knew a guy" who could get them much cheaper. Most middle class- wealthy people don't smoke anyway.