That's nonsensical. It all depends on the utility of the smoker. Cigarette taxes are, in theory at least, Pigouvian taxes in the sense that the goal is to reduc

That's nonsensical. It all depends on the utility of the smoker. Cigarette taxes are, in theory at least, Pigouvian taxes in the sense that the goal is to reduce the harm caused by smoking. They accomplish this in two ways, first, by providing funds to deal with the associated medical costs and two, by reducing the number of people who choose to smoke. Whether you agree with the assessed level of negative externalities or not (I don't, actually), the tax hasn't "destroyed" anything. Smoking still exists. Fewer people get sufficient utility from smoking to go on doing so, but that's the point of the tax in this case. Too many people were smoking previously due to market inefficiencies. Now the "correct" (again, I believe the externalities were lower than many people believe they were) number of people are smoking.