[TL;DR: below]

I can't see that being accurate on average. People who start smoking don't have a problem affording cigarettes. I can't think of anyone who went from zero to twenty (or more) cigarettes smoked per day in anything resembling a short amount of time, myself included. It's only when you're a regular smoker that the cost of cigarettes starts to go up into the hundreds of dollars per month, especially if the price of them is at or below, as you put it, $10 a pack. Progressing from that point, someone who is a regular smoker has had more than enough time to work the cost into his budget, and it's still affordable.

I don't really have any objection to the concept of taxes in general, nor as a smoker do I have an objection to taxing cigarettes. What really pisses me off (and that I naturally object to) is the fact that cigarette taxes (and just cigarettes, not other forms of tobacco, which is a different rant) are not appropriated exclusively to programs designed to aid people who want to quit, to cover the "social health"-related costs of having a society with lifelong smokers in it, and to more adequately prepare people so that they don't "fall into the trap" of being a "hopelessly addicted" smoker. Instead, and while a portion of money from said taxes does go to those efforts, taxes have been raised over the years against cigarettes through the one process that expressly enables oppression of the minority: Voting.

It's fairly well understood that poor people are both more likely to be smokers and less likely to vote. That way, when an issue is presented on the ballot that basically says: "A class of citizens that you're most likely not a member of [smokers] will effectively pay ${X Million} to fund something that doesn't benefit them and that they also won't appreciate [fine arts/a stadium] and/or a public institution [local schools/police force/whatever] in which they will receive, at most, a significantly underrepresented portion of that benefit due to their minority status." The odds of someone voting YES to a measure that they perceive will benefit them yet will allow them to incur none of the oppression it brings (financial or otherwise) by simply being outside of the class that is oppressed is, by my estimation, Pretty Fucking High. For examples of this that you might understand better (and hopefully find as upsetting as I do), see the recent bans on gay marriage in North Carolina and other states.

If cigarette taxes were truly fair and just, then they would be used to help mitigate ancillary problems that arise from smoking in the arena of human health, but first and foremost against the most fundamental problem that underlies smoking: addiction is not a choice. While I readily admit that there is no known method to circumvent that problem, there is a whole hell of a lot of stuff out there in the form of drugs, therapy, education, and likely significantly more things that I'm not even aware of that could be funded by cigarette taxes in such a way as to make that problem much less of a hurdle to overcome, allowing a smoker to make the choice to quit smoking and significantly aiding them in the process. Above all, and here's the kicker: those taxes could make "quitting today" less expensive than "smoking tomorrow." Sadly, you'll find that nicotine patches and gum, behavioral therapy, and something like Chantix are all more expensive over the period in which they're used or that they're designed to be effective than the cost of cigarettes would be to cover the same for the average smoker. At least in Ohio... the last time I checked, anyway.

For what it's worth, I firmly believe that people don't start smoking because they're morons. You start smoking because you want to smoke---though I won't argue that the reason you may want to smoke isn't moronic, as it very well may be---and you continue to smoke because you enjoy it and still want to smoke. It's a problem though when you want to not smoke, but can't. It's doubly a problem that someone in that situation may very well be "trapped" there through a combination of financial insecurity, social oppression, and the sheer power of addiction. Cigarette taxes could be used to turn the tides on this scenario in a truly meaningful way, but they're simply not. If they were, though, the best part is that it could be an entirely self-sustaining system. Whereas now, with cigarettes paying for all kinds of non-cigarette-related shit, if everyone quit tomorrow... county governments would have a serious funding problem.

Anyway, I'll stop ranting. I know, [Citation Needed]. My apologies. I'd really be more interested in something citing the opposite :P

[TL;DR]: Cigarette taxes don't benefit smokers or provide a means to pay the societal costs of smoking, and it's facilitated by majority oppression in a style that evokes class warfare.

Lest ye not be too quick to judge, that mayest thou consider: a physician engages in the art of "practice!"

I hope to God that I remember this idea the next time I win a bet with a friend.

Nope, he's quite right. I built btrfs just fine previously, but now after I upgraded to ext4, look what happens:

Apple could do all kinds of things right, but they probably never will. They'd just have to do something---hell, anything---that was in the spirit of a free, open system, and we'd probably be happy. But that kind of bullshit isn't as profitable as vendor lock-in, so they won't.

I think our mothers must have the same ethnic background. A similarly-named company also produced my first car.

Wait a minute.... That's also where I met my spouse!

Step back a minute. Just because Microsoft owns Skype does NOT mean that they think it's a great business idea to come in and tell them HOW they should accomplish something. Did it ever occur to you that they might have said, "We want Skype to be more reliable, so here's some money, dear Skype division. Now get it done."?

The mental image on that one is priceless :D

Thank you, sir!

You get one of your non-crazy, more dishonest (more than you, because he'll pass the test, obviously) friends to help you using SMS/MMS while taking it.

If you think that his diet was the cause of the fall and resulting head trauma that killed him, I've got some news for you: you're a fucking moron.

But Golbez didn't have a beard!

It's funny that you bring that up. In Windows, UAC does these things for a non-elevated app. The problem is that, even though MANY applications would work just fine with this type of filesystem and registry virtualization, they force a UAC elevation prompt through their manifest anyway.

Or they register and install a system service that runs ALL THE TIME to do their dirty work for them. *Casts a dirty glance at Steam*

Developers won't work within the confines of such a system because it's infinitely easier to get a user to click "Yes" on the prompt that allows their app to just bypass it entirely. And the developers that WILL work within such confines are the kind of people that wouldn't have an ulterior motive for you to install their app anyway.