For the record, smoking and obesity are only “causing the country financial stress” because of the insistence on state-funded healthcare. None of this would’ve been a problem if everybody paid out of pocket for their healthcare. It’s also worth noting that combined duty and tax for tobacco products in the UK, a country with a single payer public healthcare system, total at £9.96 billion. The total NHS expenditure on treating patients who suffer from illnesses related to their smoking is in the neighbourhood of £2.6 billion, or at least that’s what the government reported in 2015. Not only are smokers paying for their own care already, they’re paying into the system more than they “stress it”. In fact, they don’t just pay for their own care, they pay for *other people’s care* to an astonishing degree, and that’s a fact.There is more than enough moral and legal precedent for a country to tax behaviors that are causing the country extra financial stress (or for any reason really). Cigarettes should be heavily taxed. Sugar should be heavily taxed. Gasoline should be heavily taxed. Being unvaccinated should be heavily taxed.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...15/cost-of-smoking-to-the-nhs-in-england-2015
https://www.statista.com/statistics/284329/tobacco-duty-united-kingdom-hmrc-tax-receipts/