Governments tend to be corrupt by their very nature.
But... Yeah... They were a bit more subtle.
Moral relativism at its finest, when a person selling cigarettes at a gas station is equal to Pol Pot.
I'm curious where would you rather live:
1. A place where they sell cigarettes and deceive you how dangerous they are, but you don't have to buy them if you don't want to.
2. A place where you and you family can be disappeared in the middle of the night. Mind you you can still get cigarettes here as well, but with a lot less variety.
And blaming companies that produce weapons for the deaths caused by them is silly.
Even if we include all tobacco and opiate related deaths, governments are winning in the death toll game by a lot. And if we factor in pollution related deaths we will also need to factor in lives saved from products produced by businesses as well.
So I don't think you are winning this argument.
Philip Morris? Purdue Pharma? American auto industry and seatbelts?
Governments however, will be corrupt even when corruption loses them money and is contrary to their own self-interest.