I wonder if you're getting downvotes because people think you're serious. Everyone who prides themselves on not smoking loves a chance to get a little classist dig at those who do.

Smokes ain't expensive because of the cost of tobacco, though. They're expensive because, like most vices, the demand is highly inelastic and governments can tax the hell out of them without pissing off anyone who matters (once the gentry and the middle class have been conditioned not to smoke - prior to that, they were handed out as rations).

I love smoking, and ideally all those taxes I pay would be going toward cancer research and health care subsidies, but in reality they just go to the budgets of nonprofits and a class of people whose job is to further ostracize anyone who enjoys tobacco.