I`ve always known that it was just a scam to raise money.
i`ve always said that if the government really did care about our health they would outlaw tobacco and not make huge profits off of it.

Tobacco has no redeeming values, none. It`s a highly addictive deadly carcinogen nothing more, nothing less.
There are no other highly addictive deadly products with no redeeming value that are legal.
The government is making huge profits by allowing companies to sell a product who`s only purpose is to kill living things.
The government has outlawed many other deadly products but they continue to profit off of and allow this deadly product to be sold.

Where I live (not in U.S.) I have seen similar attempts to raise taxes on cigarettes in order to discourage smoking. When that happens, sales of very cheap, smuggled cigarettes increase sharply. The government doesn't receive a penny from those sales.
I do not smoke anymore, but even when I did I would never smoke black market cigarettes, as you don't know how they were made, nor what could be in them. Poor people don't seem to care, though.
Right now, a legitimate pack of cigarettes costs from 1 to 3 bucks here, depending on the brand.

a pack a day at $10 a pack is $3,650 a year, so yeah if you make 15,000 a year you should quit

I don't about cigarettes but here in my neck of the woods, south Ga, when my daughter used to work for a local bank she used to tell me that it was very interesting how peoples will come to challenge charges when they were spending most of their income in not cigarettes but alcohol[/b, yeah lots of charges to accounts on Fridays for weekend Alcohol from the local liquor stores.

But then again this the south after all, a lot of restaurants, lots of churches and lot of booze.

In my home state they jacked up the taxes on cigarettes making them almost $8 per pack, so most people (myself included) started driving across state lines where they were $3 per pack. The tobacco companies were losing so much revenue in our area they had to bring down the prices to make up for the rise in the cigarette tax. They are now less than $5 per pack. The price has gone up (over several years) to $4 per pack across state lines, but still worth the 15 minute drive to save $10 per carton as we have several smokers in the family and we take turns making the trip twice per month.

Back when this business with taxing cigarettes to death started, I said it would hurt the economy. Now looking at where our economy is today, I wasn't too far off. No this is not totally responsible, but it certainly is pushing many further into the poor farm. And has turned the poor in my area into cigarette beggars. Totally serious.... Some have even "gone pro", and dress up in suits and dresses to impress, so they will be more likely to get one. One day alone I handed out cigarettes to 7 people. And I said wait a minute, that was $2.30 worth of cigs. I am done with that!

Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Excessive taxation of the poor is bound to have only one affect. Make them poorer! The government knows this, but doesn't care. Isn't there something in our constitution about excessive taxation? Oh that's right, our government already used that as toilet paper.

in my hometown legal smokes are $8-$11/per pack (depending on brand). now the price got almost that high back in the 90's and so smuggling cigarettes was a major issue, so much so that prices were reduced in an effort to stem that illegal activity.

now we don't have so much illegal imports but people go to the Indian reserves to buy their quasi-legal smokes. sadly tho those Indian smokes are EXTREMELY BAD in most cases (the cheaper you go the worse for they seem to be). i had smoked one of the mid range Indian smokes for awhile saving about $6/pack. then i noticed i was starting to flem up pretty bad, so i went back to the legal brands, the flem problem subsided. meanwhile a coworker could not afford to get the good brands as being a low wage earner and the only one in a family of 3 able to work so she was buying the cheapest Indian smokes (they were worse than stale cigarette butts, and yes i DO know how bad those are). i watched as she started hacking and constantly having issues breathing. within about 2 years of this she ended up with cpd, and needing oxygen. thus now she was unable to work, making them dependent on WELFARE. sadly she died a little over a year later. I FULLY BLAME THE GOVERNMENT FOR THIS SENSELESS DEATH.

see the thing is a many have pointed out, smokers are seen as an awesome cash cow for the government. once you are hooked it is extremely difficult to quit. this is easy to see as you find people out on the sidewalks in blizzards (due to anti-smoking laws). which of course just makes it easier to get sick thus CAUSING more missing work due to illness as well as ADDING to HEALTHCARE COSTS. but they KNOW that they can raise the price and not worry about too many people quitting so they can make yet more cash. see they know once they get us hooked we are theirs. i started because of advice from multiple teachers in school to try to fit in with everybody else, just making sure of a future cash cow i guess. how i wish i paid less attention to teachers sometimes. but hey they knew what was best didn't they? at least that was what they drummed into us.

high cigarette prices have nothing to do with making people quit. it is about making more money for the government's little pet projects. if you honestly think that it is, what do you suppose would happen if by some miracle every smoker was ABLE to stop right now, and they all did stop? pandemonium would ensue as all of a sudden a major portion of their cash would disappear. wonder what they would tax to take it's place? they would after all have to replace that big chunk of income somehow.

as it is all the HARSH anti-smoking laws and extreme taxing of cigarettes does is;
-make the poor yet poorer, don't give me the bs about if you were that hard up financially you would quit. NO you would be picking up butts off the ground taking the chance of getting sick or getting a disease. not to mention eating a lot of cheap non nutritional crap trying to make ends meet.
-adds yet even more to healthcare costs then they ever were.
-leads to a lack of productivity as workers catch colds, flue, pneumonia or even worse.
-adds to welfare costs
-adds to crime. as people start stealing smokes as they are worth their weight in gold. or stealing to support their habbit (hmm kinda like crime and illigal narcotics )