I'm a former smoker and nowadays really don't like being around smokers. Quite frankly it stinks and I find the odor repulsive. However, not as repulsive as the taxation being heaped upon smokes in New York State. The most incompetent governor in the history of the state has taken to raising the tax on cigarettes again in order to close the budget gap, which of course has been brought on by out of control government spending. Now, a pack of smokes in NYC will cost $13!!! When I first started smoking in 1965 a pack of cigarettes cost $0.25. Really, this is ridiculous. Why not just make cigarettes illegal? But the creeps who run things won't allow that. They just keep taxing.