What do we place taxes on if we ban cigarettes?

Bella: What do we place taxes on if we ban cigarettes?
I’m doing an essay for school on the ban of cigarettes. I need some help finding articles discussing other things we could place taxes on in the place of the huge tax on cigarettes. We get so many tax dollars from cigarettes and spend it on nesscary things- where would we get this money from if not from the tax, and what exactly do we spend it on, anyway?
Lol.
Any helpful links or opinions?
I could really use links to site that contain information as to where exactly the cigarette tax goes- ex. what does it fund? who does it help?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Jen
we could always tax fast food. pretty much every one eats it, and it horrible for your heath in the long run, like smokes. but its socially acceptable to eat at places like McDonald’s, so that would never fly.

what the tax is spent on, is up to individual states. hear in Arizona, most of it goes to early childhood education and welfare programs, plus anti smoking crusades. very little of it goes into medicaid.

Answer by M
We don’t need to replace the tax revenue from cigarettes. It isn’t even enough to fund health care for smoking related illnesses. No smoking leads to no smoking related illnesses. Therefore no money is needed to pay for smoking related illnesses.

Answer by bostonianinmo
I’d approach that assignment from a slightly different angle. The US tried to ban alcohol during the period known as Prohibition. That generated a major black market for alcohol and was the primary driving force behind the growth of organized crime in the US.

Any attempt to impose a blanket ban on tobacco would have the same impact. There is already a noteworthy black market in high-tax areas such as New York City. Now imagine that nation-wide.

Answer by Tom T
The two main taxes that could be increased to make up for the revenue loss due to the ban of cigarettes:

– Motor Vehicles; especially luxury cars and gas guzzlers
– Alcoholic Beverages

There is also the point already raised by another respondent that the ban would substantially reduce cigarette smoking (except for smoking black market products) and with that, the decrease in health care cost associated with smoking. Thus, there’s no need to replace the lost revenue from cigarettes.