It's simple, say the attorneys general in 40 states, including ours, who sued for compensation. We didn't buy the cigarettes, we didn't smoke the cigarettes, and we didn't assume the risk of smoking. If cigarette manufacturers are guilty of deceptive advertising, by all means prosecute on those grounds. But let's not cloud the air. If participating states have a problem with offering unrestricted government benefits to recipients who voluntarily engage in risky, costly behavior, that's a political beef to take up with Congress - not the tobacco industry.
Smokers usually die years earlier than nonsmokers.
In fact, Harvard economist Kip Viscusi has shown that in all states, smokers pay their own way. Other negotiators balk at such morbid accounting of smokers' costs and benefits to society. Show me someone who pooh-poohs this slippery litigious slope, and I'll show you five eager lawyers ready to slide down it tomorrow. Even more alarming, and confusing, is the leap from allowing states to recoup health costs for which they have no rightful claim to allowing those same states to dictate nationwide regulations and restrictions over which they have no rightful jurisdiction. The answers are as elusive as skeptics willing to ask the questions.