Phasing out smoking

[RedWolf]

It makes our taxes higher with all their damn disease, that's why it's our buisness.

This logic can be taken to ridiculous extreme - We're only talking about smoking because it's the "nasty habit" of the times.

How often do you excercise? How often do you order pizza or fast food, drive on icy roads, play violent contact sports, rock climb, sky dive, drink alcohol, have meaningless one night sexual excounters?

By your standards almost all of our lives would become "illegal" because they're dangerous or somewhat unhealthy.

 

[Bill3000]

This logic can be taken to ridiculous extreme - We're only talking about smoking because it's the "nasty habit" of the times.

How often do you excercise? How often do you order pizza or fast food, drive on icy roads, play violent contact sports, rock climb, sky dive, drink alcohol, have meaningless one night sexual excounters?

By your standards almost all of our lives would become "illegal" because they're dangerous or somewhat unhealthy.

I don't really see how - because the things you mentioned are not quantifable products.

However, plenty of nations and states in the US have banned transfats - as the only thing that would do is create a benefit, as it is not a necessary in fatty foods, is easily enforacable, et cetera. The idea that there is a "personal choice" to get food that has transfats is rather dumb - because the benefit to society far, far outweighs any liberty that one gains from having the ability to have it.

You can't simply be for or against something simply for the sake of the maxim behind your justification. Pure deontology sucks. With that said, radical libertarianism sucks anyway.

 

[RedWolf]

I don't really see how - because the things you mentioned are not quantifable products.

Doesn't really matter if they're quantifiable (although some certainly are). The point is that the overwhelming majority of us do things that are unhealthy (probably on a daily basis). Due to these actions we are increasing the amount of disease, medical conditions etc which in turn lead to a drain on the tax system. Do you wish to outlaw them all? If not, why not? Why some but not others?

I'd be willing to bet that eating McDonalds every day is easily as dangerous as smoking - likely more. So let's close down every fast food restaurant tomorrow.

It's not that ridiculous or extreme really when you compare it to banning smoking. It's the identical thing really - you just prefer fast food to cigarettes so you'd consider the idea "unreasonable".

 

[Bill3000]

Doesn't really matter if they're quantifiable (although some certainly are). The point is that the overwhelming majority of us do things that are unhealthy (probably on a daily basis). Due to these actions we are increasing the amount of disease, medical conditions etc which in turn lead to a drain on the tax system. Do you wish to outlaw them all? If not, why not? Why some but not others?

I'd be willing to bet that eating McDonalds every day is easily as dangerous as smoking - likely more. So let's close down every fast food restaurant tomorrow.

It's not that ridiculous or extreme really when you compare it to banning smoking. It's the identical thing really - you just prefer fast food to cigarettes so you'd consider the idea "unreasonable".

The difference is that 1) Such a "thing" has already happened with transfats (And is probably the most analagous)2) eating McDonanlds doesn't make people around you fat as well 3) McDonalds has at least some nutritional value, while smoking brings absolutely no positive benefits at all.

 

[Red Door]

I don't think you are arguing that everything that is a personal choice should be legal.. are you?

No, I never mentioned cocaine. Cocaine is an illegal drug which significantly can hurt people. Cigarettes don't significantly hurt someone unless there is extreme overuse.

 

[LucyDuke]

McDonalds has at least some nutritional value, while smoking brings absolutely no positive benefits at all.

I have no desire to get into it with you (mark of respect, and you're mostly right), but this bit is just opinion. Perhaps smoking brings absolutely no benefits of type whatever, and perhaps you don't like to smoke, but some people certainly enjoy it, and that's a positive benefit. Whether the drawbacks outweigh that is a separate matter.

No, I never mentioned cocaine. Cocaine is an illegal drug which significantly can hurt people. Cigarettes don't significantly hurt someone unless there is extreme overuse.

Cocaine is extreme overuse. If you extracted the nicotine from the tobacco, as the cocaine is extracted from the coca, it would (much more seriously) significantly hurt people.

 

[RedWolf]

The difference is that 1) Such a "thing" has already happened with transfats (And is probably the most analagous)

Eating trans fats doesn't hamr those around you either (as per your poin 2)

2) eating McDonanlds doesn't make people around you fat as well

Smoking in my back yard or my balcony doesn't harm those around me either.

(Note: I'm not actually a smoker - just talking theory)

3) McDonalds has at least some nutritional value, while smoking brings absolutely no positive benefits at all.

Isn't that irrelevant? If the original issue was that it "costs taxpayers money"? What does nutritional value have to do with anything?

 

[Mercenary82]

while smoking brings absolutely no positive benefits at all.

Thats not true, there are many positive health benefits associated with smoking.

http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/therap.htm

 

[warpus]

Cigarettes don't significantly hurt someone unless there is extreme overuse.

With moderation most substances are harmless, of course.

The fact that cocaine is illegal adds nothing to the discussion.

 

[emzie]

The difference is that 1) Such a "thing" has already happened with transfats (And is probably the most analagous)2) eating McDonanlds doesn't make people around you fat as well 3) McDonalds has at least some nutritional value, while smoking brings absolutely no positive benefits at all.

Not true. Like all stimulants, nicotine improves concentration.

 

[Mise]

This logic can be taken to ridiculous extreme - We're only talking about smoking because it's the "nasty habit" of the times.

How often do you excercise? How often do you order pizza or fast food, drive on icy roads, play violent contact sports, rock climb, sky dive, drink alcohol, have meaningless one night sexual excounters?

By your standards almost all of our lives would become "illegal" because they're dangerous or somewhat unhealthy.

Or... you could privatise the Health service and let people pay for their own mistakes....

IMHO, it's perfectly reasonable for a government to charge smokers more (through taxes) for the (assumed nationalised) Health service, as they are more likely to be a strain on it. It also has the effect of reducing the take-up of smoking amongst young people, if the price is prohibitively high (it isn't, but it could be made so through taxes).

 

[El_Machinae]

In Ontario, you pay 5.30 in tax alone on each pack (25). If you smoke two packs a week, that's 550 dollars a year, or ~16500 over 30 years. This in addition to a much higher amount you paid for normal healthcare.

If the commercials are right, only one in three smokers will die from tobacco. So that's ~49,000 per smoker. Sounds alright to me.

Your last paragraph jumps out. You don't want to lump the medical expense of smoking just onto their deaths. Most smokers have medical complications that's connected to their smoking, and these complications cost a lot of money ... even if they die from something else.

 

[ori]

In Ontario, you pay 5.30 in tax alone on each pack (25). If you smoke two packs a week, that's 550 dollars a year, or ~16500 over 30 years. This in addition to a much higher amount you paid for normal healthcare.

If the commercials are right, only one in three smokers will die from tobacco. So that's ~49,000 per smoker. Sounds alright to me.

According to an old (8 years) estimate from the Centers for Disease Control the annual economic cost per smoker is >3000$ so your 550$ per year are not enough to offset this

 

[Mise]

According to an old (8 years) estimate from the Centers for Disease Control the annual economic cost per smoker is >3000$ so your 550$ per year are not enough to offset this

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/figures/m114a2t2.gif

And the cost per non-smoker is...?

This just gives the cost of a smoker, not the additional cost of a smoker relative to a non-smoker.

What's the total medical expenditure in the USA? Divide that by the population, and subtract that from the cost per non-smoker, and you'll get the answer we're looking for. I'd wager it's around $500

 

[ori]

And the cost per non-smoker is...?

This just gives the cost of a smoker, not the additional cost of a smoker relative to a non-smoker.

What's the total medical expenditure in the USA? Divide that by the population, and subtract that from the cost per non-smoker, and you'll get the answer we're looking for. I'd wager it's around $500

Well actually this figure does give smoking attributable costs not the costs per smoker - these are the additional cost of smoking per smoker as estimated by the CDC - so no need to do that calculation, they already did that

CDC calculated national estimates of annual smoking-attributable mortality (SAM), years of potential life lost (YPLL), smoking-attributable medical expenditures (SAEs) for adults and infants, and productivity costs for adults. Results show that during 1995--1999, smoking caused approximately 440,000 premature deaths in the United States annually and approximately $157 billion in annual health-related economic losses.

hey, they even break this down to per pack costs

For each of the approximately 22 billion packs sold in the U.S. in 1999, $3.45 was spent on medical care attributable to smoking, and $3.73 in productivity losses were incurred, for a total cost of $7.18 per pack.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ori, does it also take into account howmany smokers had the decency to kick the bucket before they stopped working to save on healthcare costs to the elderly? Not to mention the cost of providing for these non-productive members of our society.

Added to that, the US healthcare is pretty expensive, the same calculation was made in Holland and they got to a different conclusion, namely tax from tobacco was greater than the costs in healthcare related to that. I don't have a link or source, just the word of Mr. Zalm, our ex-minister for finance.

edit: and how does this relate to healthcare costs from obesity? Since there is still no fat tax.

edit2: and in that same interview it was commented upon that it is really hard to narrow down the healthcare costs, because usually there is allready some kind of problem with the health of a patient and smoking increased that problem. Often you will find the whole sum of the treatment being attributed to smoking, while there are other causes at work or the disease would have manifested itself differently or later on.

 

[Mise]

Well actually this figure does give smoking attributable costs not the costs per smoker - these are the additional cost of smoking per smoker as estimated by the CDC - so no need to do that calculation, they already did that



hey, they even break this down to per pack costs

Hmm... to be honest, the more they break it down, the less useful it is in my view. I want to know the average healthcare cost of a smoker, compared to the average healthcare cost of a non-smoker.

The problem is, we're doing the calculation compared with not having any medical expenses at all -- we need to do the calculation compared with having an "average" medical bill. It could be that a smoker isn't likely to have non-smoking related illnesses, such as Parkinson's, Diabetes, etc, and assuming that a smoker is equally likely to have such illnesses (or rather, is equally likely to be treated for those illnesses - he might die before he gets them!) is inaccurate.

I'm not saying that the CDC's way of costing it is flawed or incomplete -- it's perfectly valid -- I'm just saying that their way isn't the only way, and in my view is a slightly misleading way. I'd much rather look simply at an average smoker vs an average non-smoker.

 

[ori]

hell, I am in Germany not in the US - I just thought providing english language resources would be easier formost people here
But a recent study from the University of Hamburg (the text is German ) shows the following costs per (young) smoker over his/her lifetime:

costs because of lost working hours: 6040 €
costs for health care: 1112 €
lost tax from income tax: 4366 €
saved money from decreased pension (less time the smoker receives pension ) -4777 €

for a total cost per smoker of 6741 € the income from tobacco tax is 4584 € so that that darn smoker still costs 2157 € more than he/she pays in taxes / saves the tax payer by dying earlier... This is just the costs for the tax payer. Now looking at the costs for himself and his family in lost income and pensions and increased morbidity the costs for the tax-payer are dwarfed:

The smoker's family incurs costs of about 25485 € because of his/her addiction and the smoker himself causes harm to himself to an amount of 144318 €.

All these are lifetime costs however so that an american smoker seems to be much more expensive than a german one

edit: those are costs attributable to smoking, i.e. that would statistically be because of the tobacco misuse...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

My German is crap, so I'll take your word for it.

Still didn't take this:

it is really hard to narrow down the healthcare costs, because usually there is allready some kind of problem with the health of a patient and smoking increased that problem. Often you will find the whole sum of the treatment being attributed to smoking, while there are other causes at work or the disease would have manifested itself differently or later on.

into account

So, I take it German and Dutch healthcare systems aren't that far apart, so Mr. Zalm was talking crap?

Or are German ciggarettes that much cheaper? (Less taxes)

It also doesn't take into account that smokers are less likely to snap and start shooting up schools or offices, which do cost a lot of money.

edit:

costs because of lost working hours: 6040 €

I doubt this number.

edit2: Yeah I am going back and forth between that study thing in German

saved money from decreased pension (less time the smoker receives pension ) -4777 €

Where's the saved money for not having to treat the patient for diseases related to old age because of death of said patient

 

[ori]

With regards to the "external" costs of a smoker (i.e. the ones that do not affect just the smoker and his family) it is not easy to find consensus:
e.g. in the numbers I quoted there they do not directly factor "saved" health care costs - at the same time they do not include widow's pension into the costs even though those are paid for a longer period when the husband/wife dies earlier...
Also it is not easy to define what diseases of the individual where caused by smoking - we have excellent statistics on the risks for nonsmokers and smokers but once someone has lung cancer we cannot prove that it is because of smoking or that he would have developed the cancer anyway - so how should we distribute the treatment costs? Usually this is done by simply using the average numbers derived from statistics but then again continued smoking reduces the chances of recovery or increases the incidence of side effects in most treatment regimes associated with smoker's diseases - these statistics really are a mess and you can prove both sides currently.
We can certainly agree that there is a public cost that is caused by smoking - what no one can say for sure is at what tax rate this cost is offset.

Now just so that this does not come across as if I'd want to ban smoking: while I support any initiative that forces smokers to not harm non-smokers (i.e. bans smoking in public closed rooms), I am very fond of the liberty to harm oneself if one wants to. With regards to the health care costs it would be in the smokers' interest to define those and prove that they pay more than they cost for one reason: in public health care systems there is increasing shortage of money and thus increasing discussion on whether people should actually receive free care if they caused or worsened their diseases themselves...