In the reading passages there is ample support for the author's claim that increasing the cigarette tax has benefits. However, the professor in the lecture gives several reasons as a rebuttal to the author's point.
First, the professor in the lecture contends that increasing the tax of cigarettes would not have the potential power to young smokers. Young smokers usually buy the cigarettes through the illegal way like through a black market. The black market does not check their ID card, thus they could easily access the cigarettes. Also, the black market sells the cigarette at a low cost, which means that it also could attract youth to start to smoke. This casts doubt on the reading passage's claim that increasing the cigarette tax would be a way to decrease the rate of young smokers.
Next, the professor in the lecture insists that even if a lot of people to quit smoking due to the price, it will not be a benefit on the aspect of the environment. Chemicals which already being located in the underground are not able to easily cleared. Also, if people start to quit smoke when the cigarette demand is stable, the cost of it would be decreased, which means that the tax would be decreased as well. Consequently, this leads to the situation that people who tried to quit start smoking again. This refuses the reading passage's assertion that the environment which once damaged will be recovered.
Finally, the professor in the lecture argues that issue of poverty is not able to solve with the revenue got from the cigarette tax. As the cigarette tax get higher, the demand of it would be lower, which means that the job on the agriculture demand would be declined. Thus, increasing the tax is not a good way to solve poverty problem but it would be made worse. This counters the reading passage's suggestion that the profit of the cigarette tax is able to help the issue of poverty due to the fund of it would be increased and it could support the social wealth programs with better service.