Should those on government aid buy lottery tickets?

[JackRiddler]

24. Many voluntary behaviors are subject to restrictions on advertising...

because they are considered objectively damaging to the person engaging in them. There is no TV advertising for smoking. It is understood perfectly well in the social sciences (and by the experts working in governments) that although a behavior is voluntary, promoting it by advertising results in more people doing it, and thus the advertiser bears a responsibility. Cigarette makers were forced to pay enormous penalties for their historic practices to promote smoking, although smoking was always a voluntary behavior. They were accused of misleading people; it didn't matter that people "should have been smarter" about it. It mattered that promoting an image of smoking as something cool encouraged people to do it, just as images of lottery winners having great lives encourage people to play the lottery. The state supposedly exists to serve the interests of the people, not to fool them into wasting their money (and thus contributing in many cases to their impoverishment). If an alcoholic has stayed sober for two years, and a friend visits with a bottle of vodka and tries to convince them to get drunk, is the friend not responsible simply because it's still the drinker's choice?