But I haven&#x27;t seen (and you haven&#x27;t shown) any real evidence of governments promoting these vices. I do get your point, there&#x27;s clearly a conflict of interest here, and I too would prefer people to stop smoking rather than countries making money from it.<p>I reckon that actually the only real limiting factors involved are that if government taxes something like cigarettes too much, then the black market steps in and more people buy untaxed products, cutting the tax revenues. In fact I suspect that&#x27;s already happening in some countries (black market cigarettes are big in the UK, for instance. There are occasional busts of lorries packed full of untold millions of them, and anecdotally, most people seem to know of someone who sells them).<p>Perhaps (speculation time) this actually keeps governments from even considering promoting vices like smoking? The current balance of taxes and government controls on advertising vs the black market means that there&#x27;s marginal benefits to increasing demand, and current taxations are &#x27;optimal&#x27; ?