You can get salads or grilled chicken at all of the above restaurantsThe Dairy Queen near my house doesn't sell salads. Perhaps we should institute a tax on high fat/low nutrition foods of $2.43 per hamburger/french fry/pack of little debbies. Think that would work?
So they don't sell exclusively unhealthy productsA bag of Ruffles and a can of clam dip isn't exactly a healthy product either.
Cigarette companies on the other hand only sell very destructive products that serve no other purposeAnd yet they're legal. Tell me why that is again?
A Little Debbie may be not as healthy as something else but it does provide some nourishmentNicotine shows promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, depression, and certain vascular disorders. So by your argument, cigarettes should be okay because they provide some benefits.
Cigarettes provide nothing but destruction and nicotine highTell you what, you don't like it, go ahead and get it banned. Really, I totally support this. Ban it altogether. I'll use my state as an example. Let's say the average person smokes a pack and a half a day (about right from my personal observations). That's $3.07 in tax generated per smoker, per day. Let's multiply that times 365 to get our yearly tax revenue from that smoker. That totals $1108.69, per year, per smoker. Now in my state there are 6,395,798 people, per the estimated 2006 census. Of those, 23.9% are under the age of 18. That makes the total of adults in WA 4931160.258. Of this number, 19.5% smoke. So the total number of smoking adults in WA is 961576.250310. Per year, these people generate $1,066,089,972.96 in tax revenue. That's not taking into account the number of minors who smoke. So go ahead and ban it, and we can see where the state is going to make that billion dollar shortfall from, Lord knows that they're not going to cut anything. So unless you're willing to assume that financial burden, cram it. I already pay my fucking way, and I don't need you or any other goody two shoe trying to tell me that I'm a financial burden.
That billion dollars, btw, is why you'll never see smoking banned outright.
Nicotine benefits:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/nicotine-health-benefits.htmWashington population stats:
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53000.htmlWashington smoker percentage:
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=5128