as you said it is nearly impossible to quit. is it not unethical for the government to leave something this addictive legal, but on the same note increase taxes criminally and rip the people off they allowed to get addicted?? i just feel it is rich that the government is so willing to take advantage of people who smoke and rip them off year after year
i agree that making it a criminal offense will only make it worse, but i also don't believe they should be paying so much for smokes.
and to tax and pay costs for society is hard to judge, yes there are health bills but to what extent are these caused by smoking? 50%? 90%? the solution to that could be to not pay for any medical costs or only 50% if they are smoking related
But, alternatively if we want to talk about cost to society, why are we not taxing sugar and junk food? Because everyone does it, and it will be impossible to convince 100% of the population to pay a tax on their weekly activities! but for smoking it is an easy target, only 15% of people smoke so we please the other 85% with more tax revenue!
