The issue of a higher tobacco tax continues to smolder in Utah. It comes down to the twin questions of what government should do morally and what it can do practically.

Gov. Jon Huntsman wants to raise the state tobacco tax from 70 cents a pack to $3, the highest in the nation.

In the debate that followed his proposal, some said it was "fair" to tax tobacco use because smokers are presumed to consume more health resources. But some observers counter that, in the long run, smokers may actually require less health care because they die sooner. If cutting health costs were the only concern, the state ought to be handing out cigarettes for free.

Since the governor floated the idea of a high tax, the discussion has begun to reveal what English professors would call the issue's subtext -- that smoking is a deadly habit and ought to be discouraged, and taxes are a swell way to do it.

On the surface, the tax is supposed to offset the elimination of sales taxes on food. But if a high tax actually turned out to be effective in getting Utah smokers to quit, it would leave the state short of revenue. Fewer packs sold; fewer tax dollars.

Some observers have said that in such a deal, the party most likely to get hooked on cigarettes is the state.

Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, noted that side effect. Thinking about possible cures, he floated a novel, though impractical, idea: Smokers would get a card that could be swiped every time they buy tobacco, the way shoppers swipe a supermarket's preferred customer cards. The smoking card would send some of the tax money to a personalized health savings account that could be drawn upon for health problems down the road.

Thus cigarettes would be more expensive, which, in theory, would prompt people to quit, but the state doesn't get dependent on the revenue. As a bonus, the health savings account would allow smokers to contribute more to their own care and not have to further burden the health care system.

It's a clever notion, but problems arise. If a chain-smoking John Doe is still in good health at 80, does he get a rebate? What if he gets run over by a bus at age 35?

And where would it all stop? Would one swipe his Utah health-tax card at the fast food restaurant to feed an account that would help fund a future heart bypass operation? Obesity, after all, is the No. 1 health problem in America, and one whose massive costs dwarf tobacco.

Government would grow along with waistlines and black lungs. Health accounts would require an administrative bureaucracy and an elaborate system of rules for payouts with many exceptions and nuances based on individual medical conditions. To what degree did tobacco cause a condition? Don't ask your doctor; ask a politician.

The notion that society has a financial stake great enough to overbalance personal liberty, would, if carried to every possible behavior, result in a police state. Americans should demand the right to kill themselves slowly with legal substances until the day that those substances are outlawed altogether.

Banning a substance is a proper use of government power based on harms determined by a legislative body. But intruding into each individual's particular use of a legal substance goes too far.

Aside from the ethical and political problems, this issue highlights the practical limits of state power. At some point, government efforts to stem unhealthy behavior not only reach a point of diminishing returns, they actually foster crime.

This is not a hypothetical argument. Consider a cigarette-smuggling operation in Fairfax, Va., recently described in the Washington Post. The organization sold millions of dollars of contraband cigarettes in New York City and the profits helped fund the crime ring's expansion into other illicit activities.

The main asset of this criminal group was the disparity in state and local cigarette taxes: a combined city and state tax of $4.25 a pack in New York City, 30 cents in Virginia.

This is not rocket science. Where a high tax creates wide disparity in the price of a product, it also creates a black market; and where there's a black market, there's a reduction in state revenues. "States are losing billions" because of punitive tobacco taxes, one federal law enforcement spokesman said.

Boost Utah's cigarette tax enough and, far from discouraging smokers, you'll be encouraging criminals to load up a truck.

In this, and other issues, societies must remember the calculus of do-gooding: Laws and good intentions can only go so far in shaping human behavior.

Politicians of all stripes often want to mold people into some abstract notion of perfection. Humans, however, are determined to be free and after awhile tend to fight back against attempts to control them -- even "for their own good." Focusing too much on one vice, such as tobacco, often only incites another, such as greed.

There are perhaps practical things government can do to discourage people from using tobacco. But this tax idea seems ill-advised.