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Comment by davidf18 | Hacker News Reader

This is great, but in general when it comes to cancer, we need to focus more on putting in fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems primarily, and then building better fire fighting equipment secondarily.

Much of cancer is caused by smoking. Not only lung cancer but 12 different types have been implicated by smoking, IIRC. In the US warning labels have been on cigarettes for more than 50 years, yet people still start smoking.

In NYC, they implemented WHO's MPOWER program with great success. This includes raising the cost of tobacco through tax, banning smoking in public places, very, very strong anti-smoking ads and more. Yet, the Federal tax on tobacco is only about $1.

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And next, we introduce a "big portions" tax on fast food meals and a minimum steps-walked-per-day quota for every US American?

Imho smoking, just like drinking or binge eating, are symptoms for far more common problems with wich everybody deals differently, like stress and mental imbalances.

Add to this the fact that some people seem to be genetically more prone to addiction [0] and there is really no easy solution to any of this. In that regard, raising taxes on tobacco feels like a real sucker move because nicotine is considered more addictive than heroin[1].

While it might outprice the addict from his/her drug, it doesn't deal with the actual problem and most likely will result in the addict looking for something else to feed his/her addiction.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715956/

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magazine/nicotine-harder-t...

> "...like stress and mental imbalances."

About half of tobacco consumed in the US is by people who are mentally ill and/or alcohol abusers because they are self-medicating for their illness. They are very heavy smokers. 90% of people with schizophrenia, 60% of those with severe depression.

That said, we should be helping these people with other treatments instead of smoking.

Also, there are other ways of dealing with stress (such as exercising) that using cigarettes. I live in NYC which can be very stressful, but only about 14% of adults and 7% of teens smoke.

>That said, we should be helping these people with other treatments instead of smoking.

Indeed, but that would require a far more holistic approach than just dealing with the issue of smoking, it would require us to admit that stress and mental illness are becoming increasing factors in our modern urban lives but not everybody is equally equipped to deal with that, sadly it feels like we are a long way off from that point.

Tax something too much and you'll create a grey market. Then we can throw people in jail for selling loose cigarettes or maybe just choke then to death.

There has been some progress on stopping smoking.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/ci...

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