At the very least, ads should be banned or require nasty images like tobacco products.
Slight tangent, but I am now of the view the state should not be allowed to tax legal vices. (Drugs, gambling, alcohol primarily). The reason is it keeps pushing amazing conflicts of interest, and the state ends up incentivized to maintain the behavior it supposedly does not want.
Either [vice] is wrong and should be illegal, or is tolerated and regulated but in no way profited from by those that do the regulation.
A third theory is that the state shouldnt be in the position of playing nanny or parent, influencing behavior. If it is illegal, prevent it from happening. If it is legal, it shouldn't it shouldnt interfere.
A lot of things are only able to be legal because they are regulated in some way. I absolutely want the state in the position of "playing nanny" when it comes to things like telling companies they can't dump a ton of toxic chemicals into the rivers or how much pollution they are able to spew into our air.
It's legal to sell tobacco, and it should be, but I'm very glad there are rules against selling cigarettes to children. It's legal to drink alcohol, but it's a very good thing when the state influences behavior like drunk driving.
Nobody wants arbitrary laws restricting private individuals for no reason, but communities should have the power to decide that some behaviors or actions are harmful to the group and are unacceptable. Communities have always done that in one way or another. We've just decided that rather than stick with mob justice we would put away the tar and feathers and allow the state, our public servants who are either elected by us or appointed by those we elect, to enforce the rules for us. I'm glad we did. I've already got a job and can't go around policing all day.
Drunk driving is illegal too, for good reasons.
Im not against laws.
What I am against is the state taking things that are explicitly legal, and making your life hard and penalizing you if you do them.
The role of the government should be enforcing law. Enforcing social judgement and incentives on legal behavior should be left to non-governmental society.
Sin taxes are a classic example of this.
I can see taxes and tariffs imposed on corporations being useful to limit the amount of certain harmful goods or to help offset the costs of externalities caused by those products. I'd still rather see companies regulated and held accountable for what they do more directly in most cases.
Economically, there are major differences in who pays them, There are differences in impact/cost. There are also huge moral differences between subsidizing desired behavior, and penalizing undesirable behavior.