Could taxes be the answer to ridding third world countries of tobacco addiction? Taxes used for good?... nice idea...

The final prescription offered by the WHO is also the most powerful one: higher taxes. Studies show that raising tobacco taxes by a tenth may cause a 4% drop in consumption in rich countries and an 8% drop in poor ones, with tax revenue rising despite lower sales. The agency wants a 70% increase in the retail price of tobacco, which it says could prevent up to a quarter of all tobacco-related deaths worldwide. The claim is that higher taxes not only bring in revenue to fund anti-smoking efforts; they actually benefit the poor.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10653774&fsrc=RSS