Reginald P. Smithers III wrote:
BAR wrote:


The benefit of the tabacco tax is it will encourage smokers to quit.
We all pay for the increased health cost related to smoking.

I don't see the correlation between smoking and health costs? I quite
smoking when I was 40, after 29 years of two to three, packs a day. I
was sick usually two days a year, never saw a doctor unless a bone was
broken. Then after I quit smoking I fell apart. Back, neck, foot, and
many other things.

Statistically, there is a very strong direct correlation between smoking
and health cost, just as their is a strong correlation between obesity
and health costs. It does not mean that all smokers and/or obese people
have higher health cost, but these two factors have a major impact on
the cost to society and health insurance, which we all pay for.


Let's see...

He quit at 40, after smoking for 29 years.

40-29=11.

He started smoking at 11.

That pretty much says it all.