Question about tobacco use

[johnnie]

If all users of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, snuff and chew decided to quit today are the people who are against the use of tobacco willing to pay the costs?
I'm just wondering.

[SHRED]

1. Costs?

Am I missing something?

[JimmyJazz]

2. What costs?

:shrug:

[billyskank]

4. The lost tax revenue, I expect

in the UK that is a lot of money. I cannot speak for the US. If every British smoker gave up today or tomorrow, taxes would certainly have to rise for everybody to cover the hole that was created. The hole would be billions of pounds big.

[JimmyJazz]

5. Shouldn't that be offset by the marked decrease in health care costs?

[billyskank]

6. In the UK, no

the tax rate is so high it outweighs the cost of smoking-related illnesses. Just before I quit (2 years ago) the price of a packet of smokes was nearly four pounds, whereas it had been two pounds fifty seven years earlier; almost all the increase had been tax. And they were still being taxed heavily when they were 2.50.

Also, all those people who die early of smoking-related illnesses merely save us money on pensions later on. And surely you wouldn't suggest that a non-smoker who avoids a smoking-related illness isn't going to contract and die from some equally intractable and expensive disease later on in life?

Smokers contribute to the financial health of our state, and I am very happy for them to do that. Especially now I am not among their number. I applaud smokers!

[johnnie]

8. That's one for sure

It's a multi-billion dollar a year tax scheme. I'm curious as to where that money would come from.

[Telly Savalas]

18. Repealing Bush's tax cuts for the rich would be a start.

[BikeWriter]

3. The costs of shutting down most of the cancer clinics?

[johnnie]

7. No, those will stay open

A hell of a lot of red meat will still be consumed. There are other ways to get cancer.

[BikeWriter]

11. Ha ha ha ha! Red meat is not the leading cause of preventable death!

"This year, more than 450,000 Americans will die prematurely of diseases linked to smoking. That's as many Americans as have been killed in all the wars fought in this century and more than the combined annual death tolls from alcohol, illegal drugs, traffic accidents, suicide and homicide. Worldwide, even the most conservative estimates place the number of avoidable deaths caused by smoking at well above 2 million a year.

Smoking causes about 30% of all cancers, including cancer of the lungs, mouth, pharynx, esophagus, bladder and pancreas. It is also a major cause of heart disease, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Pregnant women who smoke have higher rates of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth and complications of pregnancy. More of their babies die soon after birth than newborns of nonsmoking mothers."

http://www2.umdnj.edu/~ama/policy/fstobacc.html

[johnnie]

13. Did I say red meat was a leading cause?

Let me re-read what I wrote. I think I just said that red meat will still be consumed.

[BikeWriter]

22. No, you didn't, but I'm saying tobacco is! Red meat is...

way down the list.

[johnnie]

24. It might be way down on the list

But it is on the list. Not to mention all the other health issues concerning red meat.
I guess my original post didn't come across right. My thought was that if in one day, all tobacco use was stopped, there would be an astronomical economic collapse. I was curious if the people who rant and rave against tobacco use would be willing to dig into their pockets and prevent a collapse from happening.

[BikeWriter]

29. No, I'd just laugh my ass off. It's not going to happen, though...

The tobacco industry owns too many politicians.

[dean_dem]

41. I'm no apologist for smoking...

But those statistics have always sounded really shady. "Diseases linked to smoking?" I'm assuming heart disease (the leading cause of death in this country last I checked) is included in that. But heart disease is linked to a lot other behavors, including diet, exercise, and stress. Someone who smokes usually has other bad habits as well, including not exercising, not eating right, etc. so I'm sure for most of those deaths supposedly caused by smoking could be explained by a lot of other things as well.
I'm still tracking down the statistics, but I've read about the correlation between diet and health problems such as cancers and heart disease to be much higher than that of smoking.

[BikeWriter]

44. My source was from the AMA, I believe. We're patiently awaiting yours...

Taps foot. :)

[dean_dem]

46. Workin' on it buddy, no need to get snooty.

Some of us have, you know, jobs that don't let us post on message boards all day. I'll tell my boss you're the impatient type, I'm sure she'll understand.


EDIT: From the NIH

Diets high in fat have been linked to increased risk of various cancers, particularly breast, colon, prostate, and possibly pancreas, ovary, and endometrium (USDHHS, 1988; National Research Council, 1989).

Notice they said Prostate Cancer. So here's Cancer rates for Prostate Cancer vs. Lung Cancer:



So while Lung Cancer rates are still very high (most likely from smoking, I'll give you that), Prostate Cancer rates are even higher and continuing to rise in men, and Breast Cancer is doing the same in women.

And some more from the Department of H&HS:

"A 20-year study of more than 148,000 adults aged 50 to 74 found those with the highest consumption of those meats were 50 percent more likely to develop cancer in the lower colon than those with the lowest consumption. The report appears in the Jan. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association."

Moving on to heart disease, feel free to browse the American Journal of Epidemiology


And from the Journal of Clinical Nurtrition:

"Further categorization of diets showed
that, in comparison with regular meat eaters, mortality from
ischemic heart disease was 20% lower in occasional meat
eaters, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat, 34%
lower in lactoovovegetarians, and 26% lower in vegans."


So no, I didn't find anything that says "Eating meat kills more people from cancer than smoking does." But how many people eat a lot of red meat as opposed to people who smoke? Which do you think would more drastically reduce cancer rates, if people gave up smoking tomorrow, or if they all gave up red meat tomorrow?

[johnnie]

45. I've always thought that too

OK, so the dude died of heart disease. He drank a bottle of Bourbon a day, ate take out burgers 3 times a day, sat around and watched big time wrestling all day long, and smoked cigarettes. He must have died from the cigarettes.

[jswordy]

9. I think you mean tobacco "abuse"

There are legitimate religious uses for tobacco among Native Americans. Smoking all day every day, 365 days a year is not a legitimate religious use. It is abuse of the power of the plant.

It is a fascinating plant, in that it will not grow for everyone. If I have seeds and you have seed from the same plant, and we both plant them under the same conditions at the same time, one of us may get healthy plants and the other may get nothing.

It is this mysterious property of tobacco that both causes it to be a sacred plant and leads to the use of a tremendous amount of chemicals and hybridizing in the commercial world to force it to grow for farmers.

I have grown the old-line tobacco from Native American strains myself. It is a completely different plant from commercial tobacco.

IMO it is the abuse of the plant that leads to disease, not its use.

[Heidi]

12. Right on.

You beat me to it. :hi:

[johnnie]

14. Unfortunately, the big tobacco companies have abused it too

My question is about the masses screaming for the end of tobacco. I am well aware of the use of tobacco for the use of religion.
It's the abuse of *anything* that can be damaging. I am talking about the economic strains if everyone quit using tobacco all together.

[DS1]

10. Well, since this thread seems to be a "think like a Republican" one...

All the money saved by not being mercilessly ripped off by American funeral homes will turn into money in the pockets of our tax payers, who will spend that money and grow the economy.

[johnnie]

15. Umm

Huh? Are you saying people won't die? I'm lost.

[DS1]

16. That's a worn out argument

and I forgot my :sarcasm: tag.

I apologize.

:sarcasm:

If not funeral homes, then spending a 1000 dollars a night waiting to die in a hospital will put more money into our pockets. If anything, going out with cancer is the true death-tax.

[johnnie]

17. Oh, ok

I get it. I heard that one before (or something like it). All that extra money we would have because no one would die anymore.

[jswordy]

19. No, that is not the point

The point is that, relatively speaking, lung and other smoking-aided cancer is AN EXPENSIVE WAY TO DIE, compared to other ways to kick the bucket. It involves high-buck care.

The money saved by dropping the number of cancer cases (and there'll be some saved by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies, as well as individuals) can then be invested in other areas of the economy.

Really, this is also a fabulous argument for national health care (a very anti-GOP idea). If you will go back to Clinton's charts on what would happen to healthcare costs if nothing was done, you will find they were extremely accurate. IT DID HAPPEN! We pay more for the same level of healthcare than any other country in the world, when you match procedure to procedure and drug to drug. Therefore, we would realize the greatest savings if everyone quit abusing tobacco, as well.

Now, if you add in the productive years that the population would gain by not having X number of people kicking off early cuz of smoking, then you get yet another economic boost at no additional cost. Then add in the fact that some of these early trips to the grave are leaving behind dependent kids who may collect Social Security, and there is another savings.

And then we come to the funeral homes. Yes, they will still get their funeral money eventually, BUT the deferral of those payments for an extra 10-20 years because folks live longer cuz they are not smoking will provide a boost to the economy by not tying those funds up prematurely.

True conservatives should be vehemently anti-tobacco for all those reasons. But they aren't.

[DS1]

20. Thank you

I felt like I was talking to a brick wall, and it's generally not something I keep doing.

Of course people will still die :eyes:

[jswordy]

21. DS1, yer welcome. I hope I hit all the relevent points. n/t

[johnnie]

23. OK, I didn't get it..lol

My thoughts were elsewhere on starting this thred. Sorry.

[gpandas]

25. 10-20 years? n/t

[jswordy]

27. Yes, studies have shown the average lifespan of a smoker is cut...

...by a minimum of 10 years. If the smoker has a family history of cancer, that rises to as many as 20 years, on average across the whole population of smokers.

"Grandpa smoked all his life and he lived to be 93!"

Uh, grandpa was an outlier. A smoker's actual chances of dying before the average expected age of death are far worse, statistically. The insurance industry actuarial tabels show this, too.

[jukes]

26. most addictive substance on the planet

perhaps not as damaging as alcohol, since the cocomitant domestic-abuse & traffic-death isn't as great, but very close race.

i smoke, BTW. and am an "expert" on addiction. i quit for 4 years. then i picked 1 up & was hooked AGAIN. having MUCH trouble re-quitting.



also, our economy is teetering anyway. to answer directly, "YES". i'm willing to see tobacco made illegal, & see other substances legitamized.

[jswordy]

28. Yep. I am a former smoker.

Herion addicts quit the horse but stay on the cigs!

"Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times."

-- Mark Twain

[Mutley]

30. I'm certianly no expert

in economics and such, but I would think that in the long run the government would save money on health costs, but in the short run would lose a LOT of money on the taxes from the sale of cigarettes. What sort of impact that would have, i don't know.

[johnnie]

31. Yup

That was where I was heading, thanks. I realize the health issues and all that come with tobacco, but I think the tax revenue that would be lost would be pretty devastating on us. We would eventually come back, but it would take many years to make up the billions lost.

[jukes]

32. johnnie

you're right about the revenue, but ONLY because our handlers wd rather put the whole country in the ditch rather than take any money from disgustingly rich assholes who already have more than they cd ever possibly spend but are greedily grabbing more.

besides, they don't care if proles die; they are trying to force us to replenish their supply of servants against our will.

[johnnie]

34. I figured people would get in to the "health issues"

When I posted the original post. What happened here in Ohio is that they were thinking of adding to the tax of booze and tobacco. They are expecting to use the "sin tax" to help us get out of the ditch our Republican leaders here put us in. Low and behold, they dropped the booze part of it and are going on with raising the taxes on tobacco only.
In a lot of places they have used "sin taxes" to help build sport arenas and other such nonsense. Now they are using that money to pull themselves up out of the debts they have gotten themselves in to.
My post was more of a question to the non-smokers that think that I, as a smoker, should "just quit". I was wondering if these same people would be willing to add the 5% or more increases to their own taxes to make up for the "sin tax" revenue and other revenues that tobacco cover.
An instant stoppage of tobacco use would be devastating. I have heard all the talk of how better our health would be and I am sure that the medical industry would lower insurance and try to make our lives easier when everyone stopped tobacco :eyes:, but I was leaning more toward an instant banning of tobacco, and would *everyone* be willing to dig into their pockets to cover the cost?
I think too many people think only in black and white and don't see the big picture when they try to tell me how I should live.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

35. NYC would certainly collapse economically

A pack of smokes costs about $7 out here right now. At least $1.50 of every pack goes to the city itself (not exactly sure of the total percentage of that $7 that goes to the city tax).

If the city lost all that revenue instantaneously, it would be in for a world of hurt. Income taxes would have to jump up, MTA would probably have to raise rates, etc.

Things would level out eventually with the savings in health care and the extra money that (previously smoking) consumers would be able to add to the economy in different ways. However, I have a feeling that in this city's economy -- which is so heavily dependent now on cigarette taxes -- permanent damage could be done to the city's economy/population/infrastructure before the costs could be redistributed.

[johnnie]

36. Bingo

That's what I was looking for and thinking. Of course I get slammed with the "but the health blah blah blah", and also get called a "brick wall" because I didn't understand where the thread was going.
I would never say that tobacco is good for you, but I am curious as to what the people who want to stop the sales of tobacco planned on doing to cover the costs. And I don't mean in 20 years after the damage was done, I meant if we smokers actually listened to the non-smokers and all quit at one time.

[billyskank]

37. Tobacco sales tax is probably regressive

it probably hits the poor harder than the rich. I'm willing to hazard a guess that generally the poorer you are, the more likely you are to smoke (and if you do smoke, you probably smoke more). Certainly seems to be true in the UK.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

39. True, true

Bloomberg caught a lot of flack when he decided to add the extra $1.50 city sales tax on smokes because of that very reason. The people who were really being punished/taxed by it were the poor and minority populations of the city. (Also, I'm not sure how this played out exactly, but I don't believe that any additonal tax was levied on cigars.)

Of course, being a Republican, he pushed ahead with his plan rather than raising the city's income tax on the wealthiest. He claimed that he was actually helping the poor and minority populations by making it prohibitively expensive to smoke.

My evidence is purely anecdotal, but I don't know of a single person who entirely quit smoking in the last 2 years due to the additional tax. And I did know at least 20-30 people who swore up and down that they were going to quit if smokes went up to $7 a pack. Granted, I've cut down a lot since then, but my motivation is more about health than money. If I'm going out for a night, I give no thought to the price of a pack of cigs.

[johnnie]

40. This is an interesting page

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/otp.html

Imagine living in Washington. 129.42% Wholesale Price

[Tyrone Slothrop]

47. I wonder what that makes the going price for a pack

Any Washingtonians in the house?

I also wish they had NYC listed separately as I think that the city tax may be more than the state tax now.

[Telly Savalas]

38. Which is why it's a good thing that not everyone will quick smoking

on exactly the same day. This allows policy makers to take measures to adjust where tax revenue comes from.

As far as the case of NYC goes, here's some rough numbers:

According to this, NYC is looking at a budget of $49.6 billion in 2006.

According to this, at the current city tax rate of $1.50, about 15.6 million packs of smokes were purchased in NYC per month. Let's say that figure is way too modest and that it's more like 30 million a month, or 360 a year. This translates into the cigarette tax generating $540 million in revenue. i.e. Tobacco revenues even with these liberal assumptions make up 1% of the spending of the city of New York.

[jukes]

42. O/C, johnnie!

every1 wants the OTHER guy's axe ground :smoke:

tobacco use is no better, nor any worse, than numerous other "acceptable" addixions:

alcohol, religion, whatever. all drain society, all help assimulate the unacceptable aspects of reality.


fascinating how SOME vices suddenly get highlighted & the resulting pariah issues are glossed over.

hope my rant didn't step on your toes or seem to negate your msg. your point is valid; every1 wants some1 ELSE to pony up...

[johnnie]

43. It's cool

I agree with you and that was partly my point. About certain vices being "OK" while others become a target.
Sometimes I start a thread here with one point, and I don't get prepared for all the other aspects of an issue, mainly because it isn't the issue I started the thread to be about.

[Mutley]

33. agreed n/t