Sure, why not. If a product is creating a negative externality that hurts society, you should tax it to reduce consumption.
Cigarettes: cost the healthcare system more money, cause harm to people through secondary smoke, are physically addictive, etc.
Vehicles that weigh over a certain amount/have larger engines than necessary: Use more gasoline than other vehicles and drive up the cost of fuel, typically emit more smog and other pollutants, endanger other people on the highway who drive smaller cars.
Carbon based energy tax: has become a national defense issue, hurts our long-term economic growth, many of the sources of energy we currently use create an unacceptable amount of pollutants, would encourage investment in nuclear and renewable energy.
Why not tax things that create problems for the economy and society as a whole? Its like putting regulations on businesses that cause harm to the consumer. Not to mention it generates revenue. And taxes that target a specific activity are a phenomenal way to decrease that activity.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
