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Christ, well, I don't think it should be banned. If you want to get all rational then yes I believe regulating tobacco as a drug would save society plenty. It might even open up the possibility of justice for the big-tobacco pricks, though surely the bosses would skate while the workers and other small guys would bear the brunt.
And I'm not sure where it would stop. It'd be one step beyond helmet laws. What other hazardous or valueless activities can we do without? Fast food? Reality television?
I agree the taxes are a form of addict penalty, not unlike state lottos.
With all that, my compassion stops where I inhale the stuff. Keep it to yourself and I'm buying the next beer.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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