Prosody

The tax in missouri failed. Though one of the goals of the tax--to reduce smoking by young people by making it too expensive--is admirable, I doubt it would work all that well. Just look at other expensive vices young people pick up.

The problem with a tax on cigarettes is that it has the greatest effect on the people least able to afford it. Rates of smoking in a population are tied to demographics: well-educated people with higher-paying jobs are less likely to be smokers than poorly-educated people with lower-paying jobs. A tax on cigarettes, then, will be paid in greater proportion by poorer people, who are least able to pay more in taxes. Sure, you can complain that those people ought to quit smoking, but that is a simple answer to a complex issue that cannot be solved with simple answers.

Education is much more effective at preventing smoking than are taxes. The truth campaign comes to mind as effective media education. Parents and schools can also help prevent kids from taking up cigarettes. Taxing smokers works something like a punishment: these people are doing something they ought not do, so let's punish them with a tax. Our society is good at punishing people. We ought to educate instead. Rather than wait for people do do wrong then punish them, we ought to give them the information to make better decisions. What we spend on tobacco-related health care will be much less if we educate children to reject tobacco than it will be if we merely tax smokers.

While we educating kids to reject tobacco, we can also educate them to eat well, exercise, read, practice open-mindedness, accept differences among people, ride bicycles...