Would smokers prefer that cigarettes be expensive? The Office of Fair Trading seems to think so, to judge by its recent announcement alleging that some supermarkets and tobacco companies had been fixing the price of tobacco.

Certainly, higher cigarette prices would make smokers healthier. There is plenty of evidence that smoking is very bad for you, and almost as much evidence that people smoke fewer cigarettes if they are expensive. But “healthy smokers” are not the same thing as happy smokers.