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Vital Signs: why governments get addicted to smoking, gambling and other vices

  • Written by Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW
Vital Signs: why governments get addicted to smoking, gambling and other vicesTaxing harmful behaviour like smoking and gambling have become too lucrative for governments to turn away from. Shutterstock

We’ve known about smoking’s health risks for half a century — at least since the landmark 1964 report by US Surgeon General Luther Terry.

But it turns out it is not just smokers addicted to nicotine. So is...

Read more: Vital Signs: why governments get addicted to smoking, gambling and other vices

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