<< that's what the government says (it's a deterant to smoking) If that was the reason they would be illegal. It's that simple. The Government taxes them because they can the cigs are a cash cow for useless government spending! >>
No, the government taxes them because they can't make them illegal. When cigarettes were first introduced (to the masses by a major corporation before they were found to be bad for you, I think it was WWII, maybe WWI) they were distributed widely. Almost every soldier had nothing to do many days except smoke and hang out at their posts. Of course, the fact that the major tobacco corporations were distributing cartons of cigarettes for free to every soldier wasn't helping. The majority of soldiers came back addicted, or at least smoking large quantities of cigarettes.
That was the tobacco companies "in"
Once they had a large enough portion of the population smoking, it would be impossible to declare it illegal without a MAJOR reaction from the people. Remember, tobacco has always been something that people smoked (as opposed to most other drugs that have come around recently in the last hundred years or so, starting with pot, widely used that is). In fact, tobacco was one of the crops that helped build America. What would happen if that was suddenly declared illegal? A product like that cannot be just wiped out, it needs to be eliminated due to knowledge. So cigarettes are not made illegal, they are taxed heavily. Every time the subject comes up they are taxed more. It is common knowledge that cigarettes cause cancer, emphasema (sp?), birth defects, and many other problems. But until every person in the US understands that and stops/ doesn't start in the first place, there will be no way to make them illegal. I doubt that even if every person in America stops smoking it could even be declared illegal, because it has become such a common thing in our community.
I'll end my rant (pardon, cigarettes are one subject I feel that I do know about, since I've researched and tried to quit so many times), with one word for you. Remember what happened when this happened... Did people stop? No. Many, many others started just because they thought the government was trying to take their freedom away.
That word: Prohibition (If you don't know the word... look it up, it's a BIG part of history)