Remember, It's For The Children

I haven't paid much attention to the cigarette tax that's coming up, mostly because I don't smoke. I don't agree with it because it's just another stupid tax to take money away from people who want to make bad decisions in life. As I was reading an article on wisn.com today though, this particular line caught my eye.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids predicts the higher tax will stop nearly 66,000 Wisconsin children from starting smoking. And it will make 33,300 smokers quit.

First of all, I highly doubt that the cost of cigarettes will stop children from smoking. At that age, it's a peer thing. Of course, I suppose that at any age it's a peer thing, as there's no good reason to start smoking. But aside from that, since when has it become the government's right to stop anyone from smoking something that is perfectly legal? Why should it be the government's job to "make" people quit by raising taxes? Is this just another feel-good-ism type of tax that's supposed to "fix" some "problem" that they've come up with? Yes, there are probably people who will finally quit smoking because of the cost. Likely, they wanted to quit before but didn't have a good enough reason. However, I doubt it will affect that much, certainly not the numbers they're predicting anyway.