Why the HELL does anyone smoke?

Most people consume a large quantity of medical resources during the last year of their lives, whether that year comes at 55 due to lung cancer, or 85 due to emphysema, Alzheimer’s, or other degenerative illness.

It’s possible that smokers cost society less, because they don’t spend as many years consuming retirement benefits.

Until I see a definitive study I wouldn’t want to guess which one is correct.

Exactly dhanson.

When all disabilities are taken into consideration (including those caused by unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, stress, genetics, accidents, and conditions caused by aging) the amount of tax dollars spent on smoking conditions is very small, if even measurable.

>^,^<
KITTEN

Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.

This is by no means definitive, but it stands to reason that wide-spread use of any product that ruins health will have a drag on the economy, and therefore on taxes collected. Here’s my take on the following story:

http://www.junkscience.com/news/smocost.htm

To the $80 billion in goods & services lost annually due early retirement & death from smoking, I’m guessing that the last part about loss of productivity because of smoking is an equal amount, another $80 B. Federal taxes on that would be maybe 25%, of $40 B.

Because I don’t know the numbers, I’ll concede for now that the Federal share of the $50 B of medical costs due to smoking is cancelled out by lower entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.

Cigarette taxes are what? $10 billion, maybe. Nowhere near the ~$40 B lost.

A couple of things I ain’t buying from this report which makes me question if it was written in bias.

“The Treasury analysis, certain to be attacked by the tobacco industry as incomplete, says the U.S. loses $80 billion a year of goods and services that would have been produced by Americans who either die prematurely or retire early because of smoking-related ills.”

With the exception of the privately owned small business that would may fold due to the death or early retirement of the owner, I find it hard to believe that job positions left vacant would not be filled immediately or soon after.

Hiring behind the previous employee could in fact be taking a person off of the unemployment or welfare rolls and putting him into the workforce - thus saving tax-payers dollars.

“Successfully preventing people from acquiring an addiction they do not want to have – by effectively combating youth smoking – is a free lunch with real benefits for our economy …”

Effectively? The last report I read showed an actual increase of youth smoking.

“The administration’s goal is to reduce smoking among teenagers by 60% over 10 years, primarily by raising cigarette prices. For every 10 cents added to the price of a pack of cigarettes, Mr. Summers said, about 700,000 fewer teenagers will begin smoking, and more than 200,000 premature deaths will be avoided.”

Pure speculation.

Cigarette prices have continued to rise throughout the years and as I stated above, teenage smoking is on the rise. They have no way of knowing that a .10 cent increase would be a deterent to 700,000 teens who would have otherwise started.

The Treasury analysts ignore some of the economic benefits of smoking that other economists have quantified: Medicare and Social Security programs save money because smokers die prematurely. Although this affects the federal budget, the Treasury argues, it doesn’t represent true savings to the economy. Similarly, the tally doesn’t reflect taxes paid on cigarettes, which don’t affect the value of goods and services produced in the U.S.”

Why doesn’t it represent true savings to the economy? Why wasn’t the cigarette taxes included? Did they just ignore the additional tax monies that are put into the economy?

It doesn’t surprise me that certain aspects were not included in the report. Could it be that:

“. . . as part of a Clinton administration campaign to push tobacco legislation through Congress”.

A-ha. Now it all makes sense.

Interestingly, politicians are historically known to selectively show numbers to back legislation they are trying to sell Congress.

I would be interested in seeing the differences of facts in an unbiased report.


>^,^<
KITTEN

Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.

*This is by no means definitive, but it stands to reason that wide-spread use of any product that ruins health will have a drag on the economy, and therefore on taxes collected. *

Why? What if it only ruins the health of people close to retirement? If everyone died exactly on the day of their retirement, would this be a drag on the economy?

As for the Treasury… I can make the same argument against condoms. “Analysts conclude that every child not conceived will cost the country $1,000,000 in lost productivity”. Start screwing, everyone.

yes, its always that bad…

bj0rn

Diane, Daniel Moore, and dhanson:

You have taken this thread into a very interesting domain. If I understand your recent posts correctly, you are asking what are the actual costs of smoking, and how will we, as a society, benefit from decreases in smoking? As with many important issues, the answers to these questions are difficult to obtain to everyone’s satisfaction. One attempt, I think a good one, was made by the CDC in 1994. Please check out:
http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031803.htm

I am no HTML stud, so I’ll just have to put a few quotations from this report in normal text below:

First:

. . . estimated smoking-attributable costs for medical care in 1993 were $50.0 billion. Of these costs, $26.9 billion were for hospital expenditures, $15.5 billion for physician expenditures, $4.9 billion for nursing-home expenditures, $1.8 billion for prescription drugs, and $900 million for home-health-care expenditures.

And then, from the Editorial Note:

The findings in this report indicate that cigarette smoking accounts for a substantial and preventable portion of all medical-care costs in the United States. For each of the approximately 24 billion packages of cigarettes sold in 1993, approximately $2.06 was spent on medical care attributable to smoking. Of the $2.06, approximately $0.89 was paid through public sources.

If I understand this paragraph correctly, the health care costs from smoking cannot be recaptured from the current taxes on cigarettes - those costs, estimated at $2.06/pack, amount to more than the entire pack.

More from the editorial note:

The smoking-attributable costs described in this report are underestimated for two reasons. First, the cost estimates do not include all direct medical costs attributable to cigarette smoking (e.g., burn care resulting from cigarette-smoking-related fires, perinatal care for low-birthweight infants of mothers who smoke, and costs associated with diseases caused by exposure to environmental tobacco smoke). Second, the indirect costs of morbidity (e.g., due to work loss and bed-disability days) and loss in productivity resulting from the premature deaths of smokers and former smokers were not included in these estimates. In 1990, estimated indirect losses associated with morbidity and premature mortality were $6.9 billion and $40.3 billion, respectively (3); these estimates suggest that the total economic burden of cigarette smoking is more than twice as high as the direct medical costs described in this report.

To sum up then, and here I quote immodestly from a recent book chapter of mine:

Annual health care costs attributed to cigarette smoking have been estimated at 50 billion dollars each year, with an additional estimated 50 billion in indirect costs related to premature death and disease . . . Smoking cessation decreases an individual’s risk for smoking-related disease, and can be expected to produce subsequent decreases in smoking-related health care costs . . .

No matter how you slice it, $100 billion in U.S. health care costs is a pretty big slice of the economic pie. And, not to be callous, lets remember that the cost in lives of U.S. citizens (estimated at 419,000 annually) is also substantial. Do we really want to stand idly by and allow this preventable loss of lives and dollars to continue?

To Diane:

Your clinical experience is indeed interesting and thought-provoking and I thank you for contributing it. I would like to note thought that your statement that “I can’t imagine that my clientele is unique and not a reflection of recipients nationwide” is surprising given your otherwise obvious thoughtfulness. There are over 220 million people in this country - the probability that your non-random sample (non-random by virtue of a variety of selection factors, including location, disease-state etc. etc. etc.) could legitimately be used as a representative sample is extremely small. Consider - do you really believe that your sample matches the national breakdowns in terms of race, religion, income and smoking status? It is possible, but I doubt it.

Also, in response to your calling estimates regarding the falloff in smoking caused by increased taxes “pure speculation”, I must disagree strongly. These estimates are based on well-considered and published analyses of laboratory and real-world experiments, including (but not limited to) Canada’s well-publicized cigarette tax increases and decreases. You are correct that no one can possibly predict the actual number of kids who won’t smoke or who will quit smoking due to a tax increase. However, the numbers cited are the best estimates based on the known facts. The label “pure speculation” is an indefensible descriptor.

Finally, I think that the article that stated “Successfully preventing people from acquiring an addiction they do not want to have – by effectively combating youth smoking – is a free lunch with real benefits for our economy . . .” may have been a bit unclearly worded. I believe that the intent of that line was something like: if and when we can effectively combat youth smoking we will reap real benefits for the economy. I don’t think anyone in the field believes that we have settled on an effective strategy yet, and you are correct to note that youth smoking is, alas, on the rise.

Apologies for the long post; serious questions deserve serious answers.

Eissclam.

Thank you, Eissclam, for your excellent analysis.

The CDC and Treasury reports focused on the impact of smoking on the economy. This is important, but I wish there were good statistics available on the extent smokers pay their way via the cigarette tax. The total economic impact is felt mainly by the smokers themselves and the shareholders of the companies they work for.(?) So an easy response is either: “Hey, it’s my economic welfare. MYOB.”, or “The rich aren’t quite as rich as they could be. Boo-hoo.”

From an economic standpoint, the $50 billion in smoking related medical cost is a genuine cost, because it’s for repair of needless damage. It’s money down the rat-hole, similar to the expense you have to pay if someone throws a brick through your windshield. Nurses, doctors, & undertakers have employment repairing & dealing with the damage rather than producing new goods & services.

The $50 B from productivity loss ($80 or more according to the Treasury report) is a direct reduction in wealth creation.

Cigarette taxes don’t add anything to the economy; they just redistribute the money. And I agree that Treasury’s reasoning is sound about assuming that the contribution of the tobacco industry to the GNP can be ignored. Demand for other goods & services would increase with the increase in disposable income that would result from all smokers suddenly quitting, making up for it.

The claim that smokers pay their way thru the cigarette tax reminds me of the stickers on the back of huge semi-trailers bragging about how much taxes they pay, as if it were anywhere near the cost of fixing the damage those vehicles cause to the roads.

Also, Diane, the fact that there are other unhealthy habits doesn’t make smoking any more acceptable. As the #1 preventable cause of morbidity & premature mortality, there is a handy deterrent: a tax increase. Increased taxes on junk food have also been proposed. Guess what? As long as this can be justified by good science, I’m for it.

Daniel Moore:

You wrote:

“This is important, but I wish there were good statistics available on the extent smokers pay their way via the cigarette tax.”

Well, if the CDC is correct and the annual cost of health care amounts to $2.06 for every pack of cigarettes purchased (in 1993), all we need to do is find out how much:

  1. A pack of cigarettes costs
    and
  2. of the total cost of a pack is tax.

Then, based on CDC numbers, we can determine how much smokers are paying their own way, vis-a-vis health care costs, and how much they are leeching off the backs of the non-smoking proletariat.

Does this sort of analysis get at the answer that you seek?

One might argue that we need to use the $0.89 cost attributed to public sources as opposed to the $2.06 total/pack, but I would argue that, public or private, we all pay more (in insurance) each time a medical service is used.

Can anyone out there provide a reference for how much of the total cost of a pack is tax?

Eissclam.

The big flaw with these arguments is that they don’t consider the costs that would accrue anyway. For example, if a person spends a year undergoing cancer treatments and then dies, that’s tallied up on the ‘cost’ side of smoking. But that’s an inflated figure because that person would die ANYWAY at some time, and when he does he’ll consume a lot of medical resources along the way, and perhaps even more.

Also, when a person dies of a smoking related illness before he’s old enough for medicare, the costs are usually picked up by his family, or his insurance company. These costs are then passed on to other smokers in the form of increased insurance premiums for smokers. So smokers are picking up a big chunk of the tab from increased insurance premiums along with their cigarette taxes. Now, if the same person dies from Alzheimers at 75, a good chunk of THAT will be picked up by the taxpayers because medicare covers health expenditures by the elderly.

So even if it turns out that smoking causes more money to be spent on health care, it’s not clear at all that it causes taxpayers to pay more.

Eissclam et al:

This is what I’d like to see. On the left side of the equation (or inequality), there’s the revenue from cigarette taxes. On the right, there’s:

o The $21 B or so corresponding to the $0.89 per pack that taxpayers pay for smoking-related medical costs; PLUS

o The taxpayers’ cost of all other damages caused by smoking, including fires; PLUS

o The amount of tax revenue lost due to premature death, retirement & extra sick days taken because of smoking; MINUS

o The net savings to taxpayers from entitlement programs due to smokers shorter lifespans.

For the 21 billion in smoking related costs, I’d rather see:

The average consumption of medical resources by a non-smoker from birth until the day he dies, compared to the average consumption of medical resources by a smoker. It’s possible that smokers actually consume less, since the elderly make up the vast amount of medical claimants. When you get old you need heart surgery, hip replacements, arthritis treatments, retirement homes, some times constant care nurses because you can’t go to the bathroom on your own, etc. If a smoker stays healthy then gets cancer and dies in 6 months, that’s possibly a net medical savings.

Well, I’m thrilled to the white meat–a thread I started has extended to four pages!!

I agree that these would be worthwhile data to collect and I imagine that they exist somewhere. I’m a little swamped with my own datasets, though, and haven’t the time to track all this down. Anyone else want to give it a try?

I will note to dhanson that the model that you suggest (rapid cancer deaths for smokers, lingering death for non-smokers) seems, on the surface, unlikely. Smokers have a dramatically increased risk for lung diseases like emphysema and a variety of other disorders which are not immediately fatal. I mention emphysema because it is a particularly slow, costly, and unpleasant way to expire (couldn’t resist the pun). Moreover, I imagine that not every non-smoker takes that long slide into eternity that you describe. Still, your hypothesis is interesting and testable.

I can’t help but wonder about the wisdom of engaging in a behavior that is best recommended by the idea that, if you do it, you die young and quickly. There are better ways to accomplish that goal.

Eissclam

Without reading anyhting other than the OP, I’ll respond with this:

It’s a drug, we’re addicted, fuck you!

<FONT COLOR=“GREEN”>ExTank</FONT>
<FONT COLOR=“BLUE”>“Brought to you by Dennis Leary.”</FONT>

The issue of cost to society is important because it’s the rationale (along with second-hand smoke) that is used to interfere in the lives of smokers. Smoking is dangerous, it can kill you. But that’s no one’s damned business but the smoker’s. To get around this, we trot out this notion that all of us are paying huge bucks because of smokers, then trot out statistics collected by biased sources to ‘prove’ this. The methodology used in these studies is clearly wrong. If it were done right it might still come down on the side against smoking, but we won’t know until someone does it.

Simple question to those who rant over their tax money going to pay for smokers drain on the economy.

How many of your personal tax dollars are spent exclusively on the effects of smoking? A few cents per year? I can assure you, it isn’t breaking your wallet. Smokers are paying many times what a non-smoker contributes through cigarette taxes, higher insurance premiums, etc.

Before you bitch about bad habits causing a strain on the taxpayers pocketbook, take a look at the effects of stress, high fat diets, idleness, obesity, and the other many things that cause a list-full of disorders and diseases.

It is hard to not see it as selective judgements by certain non-smokers (again, I am NOT a smoker). Those who protest loudest about paying taxes for smokers may be the same people who load up on McDonalds fries, drink too much coffee, stress out at work, rarely exercise, etc.

These may be the future heart, stroke, or bloodpressure patients draining those same tax dollars. See the irony? The truth is, (aside from genetics and aging) there are very few of us who live lifestyles that won’t have to depend on future health care benefits.

Hey Tank - Did you just get here? I haven’t seen you since the old board. Maybe you have been here forever and I was just in a daze.

Either way - Welcome :slight_smile:


>^,^<
KITTEN

Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.

Well, I was stunned this weekend to find out how much cigarettes cost–I had no idea! This guy in front of me at Rite Aid bought a carton for $30, and ya coulda knocked me over with a brick!

Doesn’t it bother smokers that so much of your hard-earned cash is going right into the pockets of the evil corporate bastards who are laughing their heads off that they conned you into smoking in the first place? Not only are you killing yourselves (OK, your choice), but you are paying for the homes and cars of the very people responsible!

Doesn’t this tick you off?

Flora McFlimsey wrote:

Actually, a lot of the cost of cigarettes (maybe even the majority of their cost) is tobacco excise taxes.

Tobacco and gasoline are two favorite targets of excise taxation. Users of either one of these aren’t likely to cut down on their usage jusst because they’re more expensive. So, if your government needs a little extra revenue, just jack up one of the excise taxes. Taxing tobacco has the additional advantage that smoking is considered “evil”, so it’s easy to garner public support for a tax hike.


I’m not flying fast, just orbiting low.