I'm not being glib. This article is premised on the idea that because there are no health benefits to tobacco (none.), it has no value whatsoever. But it clearly does have value: it is a source of pleasure for a large number of people. Pleasure has value. People shouldn't smoke, it makes perfect sense to vice-tax it to offset the externalities, and nobody should valorize the companies profiting from those externalities. But the reason we "permit" it is because we have no business not permitting it: we have centuries of experience showing that, unlike opiates and methamphetamine, there is no risk of tobacco destabilizing society.

It's a comically weak argument. It could, as I just said, be applied just as readily to bacon.