I have conflicting opinions on “sin taxes” on cigarettes and soda. On one hand, yes, it does make sense that increasing the prices of cigarettes, for example,

I have conflicting opinions on “sin taxes” on cigarettes and soda. On one hand, yes, it does make sense that increasing the prices of cigarettes, for example, decreases the number of people who smoke. That’s a nice result. On the other hand, the sin taxes hit poor people the hardest. First, the incremental increase is a larger percentage of a poor person’s budget. Second, humans do not have a linear response to price changes — to achieve the desired cessation rate, you might have to massively increase prices, which exacerbates the first point. Third, one could argue that rich people can afford a multitude of stress relievers and therapy methods. Poor people cannot afford that, so the sin tax is a draconian method.