[crc32]

> Nobody needs kale or skateboards either... Why not tax them to "what the market will bear"?

Because alcohol and tobacco have "negative externalities" to society. These would be mainly health related but I guess the discussion on this post is also around behavioural issues.

By adding a tax to a product, you can make the consumers and manufacturers together share the burden of paying off the externality, (e.g. care for lung cancer patients) and/or the tax will often discourage consumption in the first place. (The second being more applicable in the US where there is limited/no universal healthcare)

The reason you probably wouldn't tax kale, is because it's good for you, and if anything; you could say it has a "positive externality" in that consuming it makes you healthier, and thus benefits society. So it might make sense to actual SUBSIDISE kale production... although this may have very different effects from taxing unhealthy food.

As an example, Scotland has introduced a tax on alcohol called "minimum unit pricing" and there's a study here: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/5/e013497

The UK as a whole also has a "sugar tax" https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/research-action/features/uk...