Since taxis on tobacco don't even begin to cover all the medical expenses of people who get sick from smoking,

Only if you raise the taxes on Fast Food and any other food that can be eaten to excess and cause obesity -- the obese and morbidly obese have more long term, expensive health issues than the smoker.

Tax the smoker - fine, but also tax the fat person as well. (Obesity is well on it's way to over taking smoking as the number one cause of preventable death.)

Actually, the government SAVES money from smokers themselves dying prematurely and therefore not hanging around to collect social security and medicare. Yes, there actually was such a study done. It does have some logic to it, but I'm not so sure myself. The tobacco companies were sued for monies to compensate for increased health costs and everybody got a cut to offset states' medical costs. Follow up studies show a little less then half (in some cases, none at all) actually went to offsetting those costs. So what would be the point/ The same can be said for alcohol. Why not jack up the taxes on booze? I would list all the other stuff linked to shortened life spans, increased health problems, etc, but a lot of self-righteous, sanctimonious people would think the connection absurd no matter how realistic. Point is, if taxing cigarettes would actual help defray medical costs, I'd say go ahead and do it. But it won't.

No, if we'd take responsibility for ourselves they wouldn't get a free ride, they'd have to pay for their medical care as they need and can afford. Just like everyone else. If you don't want to be around smokers, don't go where they are.

I don't know where you found these inaccurate "facts". Who is getting this medical treatment free? I been smoking for many years and I pay for every Doctor visit and treatment. Please start getting facts before suggesting things that are entirely untrue. You must work for the Government since they are the ones starting this rumor. Or live in Canada.

Personally, I think it's wrong for the government to tax someone in an attempt to curb their behavior.....we let the IRS and current tax codes influence what we do by taxing what the government doesn't like. Bah humbug to them.

then car taxes should be raised due to the injuries recieved from accidents. we also pay for schools services even if we do not have kids. we fund projects with our taxes that otherwise we would not support. you ahve to look at the big picture.