"Sin tax"? No, this is a reasonable attempt to recover some of the expenses imposed upon the rest of us by people who make unhealthy choices.

When I get to be King of the World, I will decree that anybody who uses tobacco shall be denied any and all health care that is provided at public expense.

Then I will locate every tobacco farmer in the country and pay him $1,000,000 as compensation for never growing another leaf of tobacco. In the long run the savings in health care costs will more than cover the million dollar payments.

I am a bit less willing to impose draconian sanctions on the obese. For many this is not a life choice but a condition predetermined by their genetic makeup. Don't punish people for things over which they have no control.

As far as feeling sorry for the poor (monetarily, not unfortunate) people who smoke... a single carton of cigarettes, perhaps a week's worth, costs as much as that $50 tax, and the price of the cigarettes is trivial compared to the true costs of smoking when you factor in health consequences, diminished life expectancy, damage to clothing and surroundings, and the antipathy and disgust that the habit incurs.

And yes, I know (not from personal experience, thankfully) that it is not easy to get over the tobacco addiction. TRUE ANECDOTE: a friend of mine used to live in Florida, and in his words he was a heavy cocaine user. One day he woke up in a motel with no idea where he was, when it was, or how he got there and he said "This stuff is gonna kill me. I quit." And he did, cold turkey, never touched it again. He moved to Alaska and when he first met the woman he subsequently married he asked her to go out with him. She told him she couldn't date someone who smoked, so he crumpled up his cigarette pack, tossed it in the trash and said "I just quit." He did, he never touched tobacco again, and he told me that "Quitting the cocaine was easy, a piece of cake, compared to quitting the tobacco. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done." This from a former Army Special Forces officer.

So, yeah, I have no problem with penalizing the people who run up my health care costs by smoking.

tanstaafl.