About $6. I'm okay with cigarette prices rising if the money goes directly to paying for the uninsured smokers who face medical problems down the road.

Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. People like to demonize smoking and use cigarette taxes to get money for whatever hare-brained program they are pushing for at that moment.

People are real pricks when it comes to smokers huh? How tall is that horse you're sitting on?

Pretty damned high. Remember, I'm a Libertarian. I believe in distributing as little as possible. If smokers are a burden on the healthcare industry, tax them and put it in a fund for the uninsured smokers to use at a later date.

Take California, for example. About ten years ago, a group decided they didn't like smoking and managed to weasel through a cigarette tax that went to schools (not for smoking education, mind you). Just to the schools to do whatever with... How is that right? I'd like to think people are smart enough to realize that it's not okay to start taxing something just because you don't like it. That's an awfully slippery slope to start down.

In Minnesota the governor got a "User Fee" (because he promised no new taxes) put through which with he balanced the budget. Why would we want to use a tax on something that we don't want people to do to balance our budget? I guess I was just mad because Nicotine is one of the top 5 most addictive substances in the world, doesn't cost the country nearly as much money for health care as obesity and bad eating habits (like a lot of gamers have, I would wager), but it's okay to just say "they dum" and everyone just shakes their heads along with it like they are so much better than smokers. Also, I paid higher insurance rates than a non-smoker when I was, and it hasn't gone down yet. Do people that stay up all night eating Cheezy poofs and drinking red-bull have to pay higher rates? I don't think so.

If it were something that didn't affect me, I wouldn't really give a crap that people smoke.  Hell, the smoke itself doesn't even bother me since I just learned to live with it (and what does that say about smoking?), what bothers me is how badly it makes everyone who smokes smell like ass.

I know smokers love to say they don't smell for whatever reason, but you do and it's disgusting.  The moment you start affecting me because you smell like feet, ass, and gingivitis I can start complaining because you are affecting me.  I seriously want to throw up anytime someone who just smoked a cigerette gets within 10 feet of me.  I just can't understand how those people can't understand how disgusting they smell.

twestern- If you met some smokers that think that they don't smell, well that's just dumb. And I don't have any problem with you hating the way they smell. I have a problem with people thinking that they are somehow better than smokers, like because they happened to dodge a nasty habit that affects millions of people that they are superior genetically or something. And that they have the right to look down on others. Always bothers me. You're not a better person, in fact I would say you're a worse person for being so damn condescending.

Same here in Sweden. And rufly 3.80 euros ($5.30) for the cheap brands. 

Yeah it's as disgusting as the smell of someone who's drunk and on top of that you gotta deal with him making himself look like an ass and would probably piss himself in the next 10 minutes.

It's not that I think I'm better than them (though I think I smell better than them), it's I just don't see why you would start smoking.

And it's twesterm. 

Yes, obnoxious drunks are obnoxious, but what about the people that occassionaly have a beer or a glass of wine?  They don't affect me in the least (assuming they aren't morons and drink and drive).  Or are you assuming anyone that ever drinks fits into that catagory?

What about the person that has the occassional one cigarette?  They still smell like ass after they smoke.