> Tobacco and alcohol cause measurable societal harm
And if I choose to smoke in the privacy of my own home (or yard)? What societal harm am I causing?
As for alcohol, the societal harm caused is a laundry list of already illegal behaviors that are illegal regardless of alcohol's involvement with the exception of sin tax avoidance.
Why not outlaw the societal harm instead?
> e.g. an alcohol excise tax going towards rehabilitation and/or highway safety programs
Both of those seem like good things regardless don't they? Why do we need a special tax on alcohol for things that are generally good? It's not like only people who consume alcohol are the only ones who need rehab or they're the only problem with highway safety.
Does the tobacco tax go toward lung cancer patients? It actually goes towards funding campaigns that overstate (ie, lie) about the dangers of smoking to the point that people vastly overestimate the dangers of smoking [1].
> Sin tax" is just a colloquial name for an excise tax, which a state has every right to enact.
Of course it's legal, it's just garbage policy. Sin taxes come from the pairing politicians wanting more money and pearl clutching interest groups pleading to think about the children.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
> 99.5% of respondents overestimated absolute risk, only about 0.3% estimated it correctly (by giving an answer of 30), and 0.2% underestimated it (by giving an answer less than 30).