Does Cigarette Smoking Cost Society Money?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
Cigarettes cause fire damage.

Saying that cigarette smokers die early and don’t contribute to Social Service is similar to an anti-abortion argument: All those aborted people are not paying into the SS system :confused:
[/QUOTE]

If you’ll notice, fire damage was included in the costs. And it’s not a very big amount - 80 million, vs the 10 billion they tried to claim for ‘lost wages’.

And you got the Social Security argument backwards - smokers contribute to social security, then die before they collect.

In fact, the same argument against smoking could be used to stop abortions - abortions cost society dramatically, because aborted babies don’t become citizens who get jobs and contribute taxes to society. Do you want to go down that road? Maybe we should tax people who abort babies, to compensate ‘society’ for the loss of their unborn child’s tax revenue.

That’s EXACTLY the rationale used to tax smokers.

42

This argument is precisely why the notion of commodifying the value of a human life is ridiculous. The economy exists to support the people, the people don’t exist to support the economy.

43

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
We have a man in his mid 30s in the hospital now with a new diagnosis of small cell carcinoma. Lung mass, brain metastases, skin metastases. Very bad prognosis. Heavy smoking history (started in his early teens).

Anecdotal, yes. Typical, no.

But damn.
[/QUOTE]

You’ll get no argument from me that smoking is a bad habit that leads to bad personal outcomes.

But ‘bad idea’ does not equal ‘there must be a law’. The idea that laws should be passed to protect people from bad habits was the justification used for prohibition, for bans on gambling, and all sorts of other social interventions by the government to ‘protect’ the people. Anti-gay activists have used the same arguments to try to punish gay lifestyles (increase in AIDS and other STD’s, for example).

I find it curious that the vast majority of people are social liberals, except in the case of smoking. Then they become control freaks who want to punish people for their own personal choices, and they’ll accept the flimsiest rationales to justify it.

44

Sam Stone Mostly I agree with what you are saying, except I do support smoking bans. I think it shouldn’t be difficult for an establishment to get a smoking permit if they want to cater to a smoking clientele, but being free from cigarette smoke is healthier for those of us who choose not to. Other than that, if you want to light up outside and not put it in my face, be my guest. I’ll even sit at a table next to you outside while you smoke. I just don’t like being hotboxed with a bunch of smokers. I grew up in a house like that, and it affected the development of my lungs. For a long time smokers had very little consideration for the proven health risks they were volunteering others for, thus necessitating such actions.

45

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
(snip)But ‘bad idea’ does not equal ‘there must be a law’. The idea that laws should be passed to protect people from bad habits gay activists have used the same arguments to try to punish gay lifestyles (increase in AIDS and other STD’s, for example).

I find it curious that the vast majority of people are social liberals, except in the case of smoking. Then they become control freaks who want to punish people for their own personal choices, and they’ll accept the flimsiest rationales to justify it.
[/QUOTE]

There is a legitimate use for laws to protect people against the bad habits of others, but laws to protect people from themselves are just plain meddlesome. There may be a need for laws to protect people from second hand smoke, or from smoking related fires, but the anti-smoking activists are not interested in framing the debate in such a limited fashion. Certainly in the comfort and privacy of your own home you should be able to indulge in tobacco, or marijuana, or absinthe.

I get conflicted when it comes to smoking in public. On the one hand, the right of a business owner to allow smoking in their place of business has a lot of merit, but the rights of the employees to work in a smoke free environment does too.

You could hire only people who agreed to the smoking environment, but they don’t let coal mine owners hire only people willing to tolerate methane, there are OSHA standards driving it. For sure, an owner owned and operated place should be able to allow smoking, or heroin for that matter.

Of course, when the tobacco companies lobbied against the self extinguishing cigarettes they didn’t make themselves look good, but it was a huge nuisance to the tobacco users, and there is an economic benefit to having the cigarette burn away unused. That was an example of a law that deserved consideration.

46

There are two separate issues here: One is the existence of laws that prevent smoking in certain places, with the rationale that smokers are affecting others by smoking in their presence. That’s not really what I’m talking about.

The other is that smoking should be taxed to compensate society for the externalities of cigarette smoking. To this end, all kinds of studies have been done to show how much smoking ‘costs’ society.

This is the argument I’m addressing (and which I totally reject). Every study I’ve found counts ‘lost wages and tax revenue due to premature death’ as a cost of smoking and a justification for taxing smokers. This rationale turns humans into commodities - resources that belong to the state. It’s abhorrent, and it’s wrong. And it’s also a rationale we don’t apply to any number of activities that people do that ultimately reduce their lifetime incomes - such as retirement.

If you remove the ‘lost income’ argument, every study I’ve seen shows that smokers already pay more in excise taxes than the added health care costs they consume. In other words, smokers are overtaxed, and taxes on cigarettes and cigars should be lowered.

47

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
The idea that laws should be passed to protect people from bad habits was the justification used for prohibition, for bans on gambling, and all sorts of other social interventions by the government to ‘protect’ the people.
[/quote]
Except there are no laws in effect or proposed that would ban smoking because it is a “bad habit”, “sinful” etc. Laws that curtail smoking deal with health and safety.

You forgot my favorite accusation - nonsmokers want restrictions because they’re jealous of the exciting, go-go lifestyle of smokers (this has always puzzled me, because when I think of smokers the image that comes to mind is a prematurely aged, nicotine-stained wretch with a tube clipped to his nose, huffing oxygen from a portable tank).

For someone whose focus was supposed to be the financial cost of smoking to society, you keep oddly veering off into these tangents. One finance-related aspect I can think of where we might share common ground is concern over just how governments use cigarette tax and tobacco settlement money. Too little has been spent on health and smoking cessation programs, as the dough has been plugged into general spending. The case for cost recovery could be made more easily if income from these sources was tied more directly to smoking-related outlays.

48

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

But there are two different types of ‘costs’. One is an opportunity cost, such as lost ‘potential income’, which I utterly reject as being anyone’s business. Because if it is, then the door is open to all kinds of social engineering - pushing people into the ‘right’ kinds of jobs, limiting leisure time, forcing people to work even if they have the personal resources to quit, etc. This is the road to Fascism or Communism - take your pick.
[/QUOTE]

Despite your slippery slope argument, it is true that dying early costs society money. Look at this graph I made. On the y-axis is (Total Taxes paid- Govt Services recieved), and on the x-axis is population age. In other words, all of the 7 year olds in the nation have paid some amount of taxes (mostly 0), and received some amount of government services (A lot). Thus, at age 7 on the graph the y value is negative a lot. At some point, probably early 20s, the population stops being a net drain on society and starts being a net positive.

Then at some point, maybe 45-50?, the population has paid enough taxes to exactly off-set the value of services they receive. When they retire, they become a net drain on society, and if they live long enough eventually they would have consumed more services than they paid in taxes. What does this all mean? It means that if everyone started up and dying at age 18 we’d be screwed. Society would invest all of this money and never see a return on it. No matter what distasteful conclusions or slippery slope arguments you come up with, they don’t change the economics of the situation.

None of these activities have the effect that long term smoking does. Do you want us to pass a .1 cent tax per ski pass?

49

[QUOTE=treis]
Despite your slippery slope argument, it is true that dying early costs society money. Look at this graph I made. On the y-axis is (Total Taxes paid- Govt Services recieved), and on the x-axis is population age. In other words, all of the 7 year olds in the nation have paid some amount of taxes (mostly 0), and received some amount of government services (A lot). Thus, at age 7 on the graph the y value is negative a lot. At some point, probably early 20s, the population stops being a net drain on society and starts being a net positive.

Then at some point, maybe 45-50?, the population has paid enough taxes to exactly off-set the value of services they receive. When they retire, they become a net drain on society, and if they live long enough eventually they would have consumed more services than they paid in taxes. What does this all mean? It means that if everyone started up and dying at age 18 we’d be screwed. Society would invest all of this money and never see a return on it. No matter what distasteful conclusions or slippery slope arguments you come up with, they don’t change the economics of the situation.

[/quote]

I find your argument utterly irrelevant. First of all, it is extremely rare that smokers die at a young age. Second, they contribute taxes all their lives, and tend to use less of those state services at the end. They use less medicare, they collect less in pensions, and if they didn’t consume health care resources as they die from lung cancer or heart disease, they’d consume them as they die from Alzheimers, emphysema, or any number of maladies which strike down old people.

But the point is, why should we tax smokers for this supposed loss of tax money, when we don’t do it for other people? Specifically, why shouldn’t we tax people who retire early? After all, they have years of productive life left, during which they would have paid taxes. Why should they get to go and live tax-free now, while the rest of us keep paying it?

And how about those people who could earn big salaries but choose to be less productive in exchange for more personal leisure time? Why shouldn’t they be taxed as well?

Singling out smokers for this special “you owe us your life” tax is, well, discriminatory.

And doesn’t the discussion of people as if they are commodities of the state bother you, even a little? Why in hell are we even talking about punishing people for making choices that effect how much tax money they may cough up over a lifespan? I find the whole concept repugnant.

How about a ‘health care cost’ tax of $20 on a pair of skis? After all, a skiier is more at risk of using the health care system for an avoidable injury than is an equivalent non-skiier.

Motorcycle riders too. Let’s put a $200 health care tax on a motorcycle, or raise the fees for motorcycle licenses by $100/yr, with the money going to the health care system.

Then we can go after the skateboarders, the couch potatoes, the softball players, and anyone else who is an above-average burden on the health care system because of avoidable risks they choose to take on.

Because if you’re going to accept that people should be taxed to compensate the state for money they could have earned but didn’t, what logical reason could you give for stopping at smokers?

And if you’re going to say that we go after smokers because of the scale of the problem… how about obesity? It’s a HUGE drain on the health care budget. It leads to all kinds of chronic and life threatening problems.

So… Should there be a ‘fat tax’?

50

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I find your argument utterly irrelevant.
[/quote]

More explicitly, which you left out, so long as the bulk of smokers are dying after age 45-50 (the point where taxes paid “exactly off-sets” received services), the argument defeats itself.

51

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Except there are no laws in effect or proposed that would ban smoking because it is a “bad habit”, “sinful” etc. Laws that curtail smoking deal with health and safety.
[/quote]

I’m curious – what do you think “bad habit” means? Surely you’re not going to argue that health and safety are not a large part of it?

Really? I think Sam Stone has made a stellar case: (many of) the arguments in support of cigarette tax rely on a “financial cost to society”; those arguments can be equally applied to other activities that are viewed as personal choices that also incur a “financial cost to society”. It’s not clear to me where the “veering off” is taking place – can you clarify?

52

Why don’t we tax high-risk sports? Take rock climbing-it can be quite dangerous, and lead to death or injury? Or swimming-there’s a small 9but finite) chance you can drown, every time you enter the water. Or running-you can get hit by a bus, or have a heart attack. heck, let’s ban all activities!

53

Uh, yeah, they’re basically the reasons that smoking is regulated. Sam, while ostensibly starting this thread to focus on the financial repercussions of smoking vis-a-vis society, has repeatedly suggested that we are “punishing” smokers because of the view that smoking is sinful, that liberals like bossing people around, or similar hyperbolic silliness.

It hasn’t been mentioned much (or at all) in this thread so far, but part of the stated goal in keeping cigarette taxes high or raising them, is to discourage young people from taking up the habit (there are studies tying decreases in teen smoking to jumps in the cigarette tax).

If there’s sufficient public support for taxing other harmful activities to pay for associated costs, it’ll happen. Interestingly, the subject of fees for mountain climbing came up recently in connection with one or more highly publicized and costly rescues of stranded climbers. I sort of doubt that public costs connected with high risk sports are in the same ballpark as the totals associated with smoking (not to mention all the inconveniences to those who do not take part), but anybody’s welcome to promote new taxes if they want.

54

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Uh, yeah, they’re basically the reasons that smoking is regulated.
[/QUOTE]

So, again: why are people not advocating (as loudly and as strenuously) for a “fat tax”? He is not, AFAICT, engaging in “hyperbolic silliness”, but simply pointing out hypocrisy.

Either way, that doesn’t address Sam Stone’s point that smokers are already overtaxed. He has presented arguments showing that calculations of “societal cost” are skewed (monumentally, at that). They have not been countered, as far as I can see.

55

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
So, again: why are people not advocating (as loudly and as strenuously) for a “fat tax”?
[/quote]
Well, on the other hand obesity is equated with sinfulness (or at least sloth, gluttony etc.) by some. So that doesn’t exactly support the “sin tax” angle.

I think you are confusing “societal cost” with “lost income”, which is a much narrower measure of the harm done to society by smoking.

You may be interested in this table, which suggests that American tobacco products are actually undertaxed.

56

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I find your argument utterly irrelevant. First of all, it is extremely rare that smokers die at a young age. Second, they contribute taxes all their lives, and tend to use less of those state services at the end. They use less medicare, they collect less in pensions, and if they didn’t consume health care resources as they die from lung cancer or heart disease, they’d consume them as they die from Alzheimers, emphysema, or any number of maladies which strike down old people.
[/quote]

Perhaps, but you can’t just ignore the effect I described in the analysis of smoking’s costs to society.

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

But the point is, why should we tax smokers for this supposed loss of tax money, when we don’t do it for other people? Specifically, why shouldn’t we tax people who retire early? After all, they have years of productive life left, during which they would have paid taxes. Why should they get to go and live tax-free now, while the rest of us keep paying it?

And how about those people who could earn big salaries but choose to be less productive in exchange for more personal leisure time? Why shouldn’t they be taxed as well?
[/quote]

If this was actually a significant problem, perhaps we should. What would you do if everyone started up and retiring at age 25?

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

And doesn’t the discussion of people as if they are commodities of the state bother you, even a little? Why in hell are we even talking about punishing people for making choices that effect how much tax money they may cough up over a lifespan? I find the whole concept repugnant.
[/quote]

I wish I could change reality by just finding it repugnant.

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

How about a ‘health care cost’ tax of $20 on a pair of skis? After all, a skiier is more at risk of using the health care system for an avoidable injury than is an equivalent non-skiier.

Motorcycle riders too. Let’s put a $200 health care tax on a motorcycle, or raise the fees for motorcycle licenses by $100/yr, with the money going to the health care system.

Then we can go after the skateboarders, the couch potatoes, the softball players, and anyone else who is an above-average burden on the health care system because of avoidable risks they choose to take on.

Because if you’re going to accept that people should be taxed to compensate the state for money they could have earned but didn’t, what logical reason could you give for stopping at smokers?
[/quote]

Those effects are small potatoes compared to smoking. For example, 430 people died in 1993/94-2003/2004 from skiing, whereas the CDC says 400,000 people die each year from smoking. I’d wager that if you spread the cost of the 430 deaths over all skis you’re talking about pennies at most. Probably not even worth the infrastructure to set up a tax collecting system.

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

And if you’re going to say that we go after smokers because of the scale of the problem… how about obesity? It’s a HUGE drain on the health care budget. It leads to all kinds of chronic and life threatening problems.

So… Should there be a ‘fat tax’?
[/QUOTE]

Maybe there should be.

57

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Well, on the other hand obesity is equated with sinfulness (or at least sloth, gluttony etc.) by some. So that doesn’t exactly support the “sin tax” angle.
[/quote]

So you’re ignoring the health and safety costs of obesity when it’s convenient.

Not at all. “Societal cost”, calculated as Sam Stone has indicated, is the net of both debits and credits. “Lost income” is a debit; the credits are simply never even included in the calculation.

Relative tax rates do not detract from the point. It just says that other countries are overtaxing cigarettes even more than the U.S.

58

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
So you’re ignoring the health and safety costs of obesity when it’s convenient.
[/quote]
Not at all. I was commenting on the “sinfulness” angle. I’m confident that when you read the exchange carefully you’ll comprehend the point.

And thus we are left with disputes over net cost.

I believe that ship has already sailed, but the debate has not been completely without interest.

But why should that be? Don’t we often hear that concepts of morality are less rigid abroad? What does that say about taxing “sinfulness”? :slight_smile:

59

Bleah. My head hurts from banging it on the proverbial wall.

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
Not at all. I was commenting on the “sinfulness” angle. I’m confident that when you read the exchange carefully you’ll comprehend the point.
[/quote]

Let’s recap in summarized form, starting with post 51:

J: No laws banning smoking due to sin and “bad habit”. Rather, laws curtail smoking because of health and safety.
DS: Health and safety are a major portion of “bad habit”.
J: Yes…If there were more public support, other “bad habits” would be curtailed.
DS: So why no “fat tax”? That’s hypocrisy.
J: But obesity is viewed as sin.
DS: You’re ignoring health and safety of obesity.
J: Yes, you’re right. Go back and re-read it and you’ll see.

I did. And I’m right. Thank you.

Yes. And according to the numbers Sam has given, there is actually a net surplus rather than cost given current cigarette taxes in the U.S. Nothing has been presented to counter that, so yes, that ship has sailed.

I have no idea, nor do I think that what I “often hear” is universally applicable. And again, inflated tax rates of other countries do not detract from the argument that the U.S. gains a net surplus due to smoking in the U.S.

I suspect I’m done with this.

60

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
…I’m right. Thank you.
[/QUOTE]
See? That wasn’t so hard.

All you have to do is make up a debate, award yourself a starring role, and hey presto! You win.

Better to realize it late than never.