That's a fallacy. Smoking costs $31.5 billion dollars a year in increased health funding in Australia. And your argument is particularly silly - do you think p

That's a fallacy. Smoking costs $31.5 billion dollars a year in increased health funding in Australia. And your argument is particularly silly - do you think people die of cancer overnight? No, they hang in there for years, and as a compassionate society we treat them for their terrible disease until they die. Of course, there are many other things that smoking can do before someone contracts a fatal condition: gangrenous limbs that must be amputated, rooting teeth and gums that must be operated on, non-fatal strokes that prevent them from working and must be subsidised, cataracts and blindness, hip and bone fractures, diabetes and increased recovery times from surgery all contribute to the cost. And we have an additional cost that's not obvious to those outside Australia: bushfires. In fact, it's estimated that a quarter of all deaths in fires were due to cigarettes being improperly disposed. I believe the cost is something like $150 million a year. And that's not even putting a cost on the deaths of these people to their families and friends.