Actually, it's mixed. The states now get such a huge chunk of tobacco money that they're incentivized to keep people smoking. The more they smoke, the more the state gets.
The state "gets" tobacco tax revenue to help pay for the burden of medical treatment for those with smoking related illnesses. Lung cancer isn't free to treat.
If you've read it, then please provide the citation.
Smoking not only has its own direct impacts (lung cancer, emphysema), but it also makes many other conditions far worse than they would be without smoking, and therefore more expensive to treat.
So it's all about tax revenue to defer this cost.
This is not judgement, to be clear. I enjoy the occasional smokable like anyone else, but I do that with full understanding of the health risks associated with it.