$200 per pack, increasing yearly. That'd probably be about right. You should have quit years ago. If you started smoking anytime in the past 50 or so years, after being taught in taxpayer funded schools not to smoke, then you should receive an additional one-time fee of a hundred thousand dollars, because genuinely fuck you.

Just because you don't personally like something doesn't justify ever increasing taxes on it.

The only real risk with pigouvian taxes is that if you raise them too high, you can foster the development of a black market, which comes with its own set of negative social consequences.

My point is that the solution is such a blunt tool. Given that smoking rates aren't relatively high in Iowa, smoking alone cannot be the major contributor to their relatively increased cancer rates. Were they to smoke more than any other state and also have high rates, I could maybe see it, but that's just not the case.

Even if smoking rates were high and and increasing the tax were a solution, I'd still suggest that it's rather lazy to only do that given that tobacco does not cause a majority of cancer.

You could do the same thing in a different direction and be equally relatively ineffective by, for instance, decreasing tax on sunscreen, or subsidizing healthy foods or gym memberships.

Given that stress contributes to cancer rates, you could decrease the cost of mental health, run a de-stigmatizing campaign, force all corporations to finance therapy with independently verified therapists etc.

There are so many many things that can be done that would likely be better than attempting to decrease an already low smoking rate.

I understand that you were trying to make a different point so forgive me for derailing this conversation but this is important and I want to be emphatic.

Smoking incontrovertibly and substantially increases your risk of developing cancer. 85-90% of lung cancer cases and a substantial number of other forms cancers of can be attributed to smoking. There are a lot of ways to study this (you can look at people that never started smoking, not just people who quit). Yes, these studies are correlational (we don’t do RTCs on things that can kill you) but they are very high powered and are designed to account for confounding variables. The entire reason we’ve seen a decline in cancer mortality in the US since the 90s is largely attributable to falling smoking rates beginning in the 70s. And while much fewer people smoke, roughly 1 in 7 still do. Encouraging them to find another way to feed their nicotine addiction, and discouraging young people from ever picking up the habit, would save a lot of lives still.

I don't think this is true, do you have any evidence? I would think mortality rates going down is mostly due to advances in treatment. Especially since the majority of cancer types are not caused by smoking.

Iowa's tobacco use is relatively low. If tobacco were the primary problem (as indicated by the focus of the solution), you'd expect Iowa to use more tobacco than most or all states.

Given that their utilization is so low, it cannot possibly be the leading contributor.

Reducing an already low use of the product is a dumb place to start and a worse place to stop if your goal is to decrease the cancer rate.

If your goal were to reduce the cancer rate, you'd focus on something about your population that is contributing to the higher cancer rate.

[1] https://www.radioiowa.com/2026/01/02/iowa-smokers-can-save-m... (“Increasing the cost of tobacco products is one of the most effective ways to reduce use,” Cale says, “and in turn, to lower Iowa’s lung cancer rates.”)

[2] GLP-1 drugs may fight addiction across every major substance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47280797 - March 2026

[3] GLP-1 medications get at the heart of addiction: study - https://medicine.washu.edu/news/glp-1-medications-get-at-the... - March 4th, 2026

(i have personal experience with a loved one who will not quit smoking, so I am not unsympathetic to this risk and harm incurred)

A simple ban will work as well as prohibition of alcohol did. There will be a black market. Sure, producing tobacco is a bit more involved then producing liquor, but for smuggling there are enough options.

The attempt is to raise prices and do marketing against smoking as well as preventing ads for smoking. So that over time the interest goes down and when looking at numbers of smokers that seems to work in some regions.

Of course tobacco lobby has a lot of money and tries to prevent all measures.