Indeed. In the context of a publicly-funded healthcare system (which Australia has), the direct health costs of alcohol consumption do end up being 'socialised'. While my (minority) view is that this argument doesn't apply to smoking, I think it does for alcohol.

Although, it is much more tricky to estimate the harm caused by alcohol consumption and then levy taxes accordingly. The reason being that unlike smoking, which has very high rates of addiction, the vast majority of people who consume alcohol don't really come to any harm because of it. But 10-15 % of consumers are super badly harmed by it, mostly due to a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. It's similar to gambling in many ways.

Ideally you'd have a tax rate that increases with each additional 'unit' of alcohol purchased within some time period. Obviously this is totally impractical to implement. But before all that there's a pretty basic 'first-step' we should be taking: levying tax on alcohol on a volumetric basis, rather than having different rates for beer, wine, spirits etc. It's the best starting point: simply levy a tax of x cents per milli-litre of alcohol. Only after we've done that can we start getting all fancy with measures like 'pre-commitment', time-varying tax rates (which I personally think are unfeasible) etc.

EDIT: As for negative externalities, putting aside public health, my guess is the two main sources would be (a) drunk, anti-social behaviour and (b) third-party road injuries and fatalities. As to the magnitude of these, I have no idea...

The most obvious difference is that alcohol isn't directly harmful to other people, whereas smoking is...

This attribute basically makes it very difficult for people to adopt a "well it's their choice, I'll let them dig their own grave" attitude in regard to smoking.

Except that second hand smoke isn't really that bad. http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2013/12/12/study-fi...

That does not match the scientific consensus [1]. You'll have to do better than a single study, summarized in a Forbes article, if you want to make that claim.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking

From your link.

>Most of the research has come from studies of nonsmokers who are married to a smoker. Those conclusions are also backed up by further studies of workplace exposure to smoke

I suggest you don't marry a smoker, or work in a bar where they allow smoking. Otherwise, you'll be fine. You'll probably be fine either way. The increased risk is minimal (1-4%?) and requires years and years of constant exposure.

Even ignoring health effects, it has a smell that can be sickening for non-smokers, and you can't control where the smoke goes. Ordinances against smoking are also nuisance ordinances, not unlike rules around excessively loud music or mufflers.

At this point some smokers like to bring up "b-b-but what if someone wears a ton of perfume??" but in practice basically nobody regularly takes a break to shoot perfume several times in a row into the air around them.

> Even ignoring health effects, it has a smell that can be sickening for non-smokers, and you can't control where the smoke goes.

That also applies to different cultures' bathing and perfume practises, but I think we all recognise that banning those practises would be unjust.

> At this point some smokers like to bring up "b-b-but what if someone wears a ton of perfume??" but in practice basically nobody regularly takes a break to shoot perfume several times in a row into the air around them.

You've clearly never shared an enclosed space with someone whose bathing practises — while unobjectionable from a health & sanitation viewpoint — are different from your own.

Ah, here come the bad analogies from the smoking apologists.

It's quite rare that I come across anyone who's even close to as stinky as a smoker who's currently smoking. Besides, as a practical matter, restricting bad body odor is not nearly as problematic as restricting smoking.

There are considerable taxes on alcohol:

https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Excise-and-excise-equivalent...

The negative externalities of alcohol are substantially exaggerated. Public health researchers go crazy inventing externalities for things they don't like.

http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/price-of-...

With cigarettes the damage and causation is much clearer. Something like 1 in 2 people who smoke will die early from a smoking related cause. With alcohol the figure is an order of magnitude lower at least.

> The negative externalities of alcohol are substantially exaggerated. Public health researchers go crazy inventing externalities for things they don't like.

…

> With cigarettes the damage and causation is much clearer. Something like 1 in 2 people who smoke will die early from a smoking related cause.

But the externalities of tobacco are essentially non-existent: 'second-hand smoke' is one of those invented public-health externalities. Tobacco preponderantly affects those who smoke it (although of course young children of older parents may lose their parents to smoking-related illnesses).

> 'second-hand smoke' is one of those invented public-health externalities

The immediate effects of second-hand smoke on asthmatics are not exactly invented, nor, alas, hard to notice.

“Cigarette smoke is the residue of your pleasure. It contaminates the air, pollutes my hair and clothes, not to mention my lungs. This takes place without my consent. I have a pleasure, also. I like a beer now and then. The residue of my pleasure is urine. Would you be annoyed if I stood on a chair and pissed on your head and your clothes without your consent?”

— Sign from Ken’s Magic Shop

How do you explain the millions of non-smokers dying of smoking related illnesses if second hand smoke is an invented thing?

Air pollution has other sources like cars, coal plants, VOC's released from manufactured materials, etc.

Which coincidentally impacts people that work or live in the vicinity of heavy smokers much worse?

What study are you refering to exactly?

Because that statistic was made up? You know you can still get lung cancer even without have ever inhaled second hand smoke.

True about second-hand smoke. It was exaggerated.

The big externality for tobacco smoking is the health costs of those who smoke and die and get very sick from it, both early and with health costs.

Even in the US the public wound up footing the bill for the public health costs. At a certain point taxes on cigarettes do cover the health costs. That point may have been reached in Australia. It depends on what people include and how big they make the damages.

Another externality is that a lot of non-smokers dislike breathing in second-hand smoke, apart from whatever negative health impacts it may have–yet inevitably they end up doing so due to smoking in public places, smoking neighbours, etc.

It is hard to measure the value of this externality. But in the abstract it must have some value: suppose there was a magic spell which made all secondhand smoke go away, and using it had no negative side effects – how much would the average non-smoker be willing to pay for this spell? Personally I'd be willing to pay at least $1/day, and let us assume the average adult non-smoker puts the same value on it as I do. Then, by rough estimation, I'd say there are about 16 million adult non-smokers in Australia, which implies the cost of this externality in Australia is around $5.8 billion a year. That dwarfs in comparison to the health costs, but it isn't nothing either.

no, my mum has emphysema, she's never smoked in her life, but she's surrounded by smokers. Second hand smoke is a real thing.

And how do you know it's tobacco smoke that caused her illness and not your car exhaust system?

Because while social smoking helps in terms of meeting other smokers, it's not a big part of our social culture. Drinking (like it or not) is a huge helper socially, sure it can be a crutch in many cases, but in a whole lot of other cases its a huge boon to meeting friends and getting social.

It certainly helped me in the past, and got me through a lot of social barriers.

I'm not saying alcohol and alcoholism isn't a significant problem in many cases, but it has a well deserved social status, which I don't see as going anywhere soon. Smoking has no such status.

Also, AFAIA, the addictiveness of alcohol varies a lot amongst the population, whereas pretty much everybody who smokes is addicted.

This means that using alcohol like you mention, as an occasional social lubricant, is a very viable strategy for many people. Once somebody starts smoking though, most of them can't just stop at will, they're probably doomed to spending all their breaks standing outside in the carpark, every day...

I can't really grow tobacco at home, at least not in any great quantity but upgrading wine to moonshine isn't that difficult and thanks to modern electronics (read a thermometer from ali express and a drip cooker) you can control the temperature perfectly so you get no methanol.

That drastically limits how much you can tax alcohol.