[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Governments around the world collect more than $200 billion in tobacco taxes every year but spend less than one fifth of 1 percent of that revenue on tobacco control, it said.

There is the answer to your question if there was a question on the table. No government that taxes tobacco actually wants to eliminate it. If it cost society more in health care costs than they bring in as taxes, governments would raise the taxes again until they were profitable. Besides think of all the Social Security "contributions" the government gets to keep if you die prematurely from smoking.

True dat!