Comment by joshvm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshvm | Hacker News Reader

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Governments really want people to stop smoking. They're going to make it as difficult and expensive as they possibly can. It's hard to nail down whether it costs the economy more to support smokers than we get back in tax [1], but it's a good political argument. It's also an occupational hazard if you work in an enclosed space where people are allowed to smoke (e.g. pubs and restaurants).

This article would be better if it wasn't biased to the point of inaccuracy [2]. It also contains sweeping generalisations like:

> Most nonsmokers find smoking inconvenient and have little regard for the smoking minority’s preferences.

Lest we forget that Big Tobacco has an extensive history of dodgy scientific study. As someone posted on Reddit today, it's a similar attitude to climate change denial:

1) Cigarettes aren't bad for you.

2) Cigarettes might be bad for you but the science isn't in yet. We need to study the issue more.

3) Cigarettes do have some negative health effects, but they aren't that bad.

4) Okay cigarettes are terrible for you, but people have a right to smoke if they want.

[1] https://fullfact.org/economy/does-smoking-cost-much-it-makes...

[2] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=h...

(I'm amazed with the quality of the translation, if that's automatic)

>Governments really want people to stop smoking.

Are you sure that's true? Governments earn an awful lot of money from smokers.

Given the upcoming pension crisis so many US cities and states are facing, it might make sense to encourage smoking.

Things might be different in the UK.

Here's a nice smoking picture: http://pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com/wp-content/uploads...

What Government earns from tobacco taxation [1] is eclipsed by the cost of healthcare and economic impact from smoking [2].

[1] - http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-13-taxation/13-...

[2] - http://www.health.gov.au/tobacco

Neither of those links gives any data about the costs of smoking, what do you propose the costs are? I thought smokers cost governments less then the average person.

> However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.

> Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-08-fda-to...

There's an overview with data and sources in another section of the website [1].

I think the key difference in Australia and USA is that the Australian government, due to our extensive Medicare coverage [2], bears most of healthcare burden for smokers. Thus, for Australians, paying for smokers' medical costs nearing their end of life is more expensive than keeping them healthy.

[1] - http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-17-economics/17...

[2] - http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/02/20/how-does-austr...

That page notes

>Some researchers have estimated that the lifetime health care costs for smokers are lower than for non-smokers. In the models these researchers used, the health care cost savings attributed to smokers' premature death from smoking-associated illnesses more than offset their higher annual medical costs.39,40 Other analysts have found the reverse—that although smokers do, on average, die earlier than people who have never smoked, this 'saving' in terms of medical expenditures does not fully offset their higher medical costs—the lifetime medical costs for smokers are higher than for non-smokers.

Whether it's for economic gain or for political gain, yes. The UK government is pushing through aggressive legislation to try and get people away from smoking, e.g. the recent ban on branded packaging, smoking in a car with kids is illegal, etc.

See my reference [1]. You can make the economic argument either way, however there is one thing that's almost certain: revenue from smokers is at an upper bound now. Increasing the cost of cigarettes is probably not going to improve tax revenue.

On the pro side for smoking, aside from taxation on cigarettes, manufacture of tobacco products pays salaries which gets fed back into the economy. It's also possible that healthy people actually cost the health service more because instead of dropping dead of emphysema, people live longer and rack up more routine costs over time.

I thought smokers cost governments less then the average person because they tend to die quickly right before retirement age. So governments get all the productivity without having to pay for a long retirement and possibly very long and drawn out end of life medical care that healthy people usually require.

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