[Old Professer]

Your statistics are terribly flawed; most of the maintenance costs are expended on the elderly, cancer patients of all types and the worried-well.

Even the CDC allows that fewer than 500,000 so-called premature deaths are attributable in some way to smoking and not to nicotine itself.

Smoking in public is a very rude thing to do; being snotty in public can get you an amateur rhinoplasty.

[Publius6961]

Even the CDC allows that fewer than 500,000 so-called premature deaths are attributable in some way to smoking and not to nicotine itself.

You are being kind.
The fraud is more thorough than that!

If someone crashes into a bridge abutment at 120 MPH and dies, and there are cigarettes in the car it is listed among the 500,000.
If the dead person ever smoked likewise.
If the dead person ever lived in a household where smoking took place it is included.
If the dead person is 105, it is also part of their figure.

We are talking fraud at a spectacular level...