Smoking cessation has a positive dollar return on investment....
Today's Post: Thursday, 9-16-2010
Last Tuesday, 9-14, Reuters had almost that same headline for a story about research done at Penn State:
“Smoking cessation treatments cost-effective: U.S. study.”
The researchers said that for every $1 a state would spent on smoking cessation treatments, states will get back $1.26, amounting to a 26 percent return on their investment.
The researchers, compared the costs of drugs & counseling programs to try to help people quit smoking with the dollar costs of premature deaths, lost productivity and the health care costs from the smoking that are all prevented.
The article quotes Paul Billings of the American Lung Association who listed the estimated costs of smoking nationally.
"Smoking results in costs to the United States of more than $300 billion a year," told reporters in a news briefing.
That includes $67.5 billion in lost workplace productivity; $117 billion from the cost of people dying prematurely; and $116 billion in direct medical expenditures.
The article also listed these numbers on a per pack basis.:
“Although the average cost of a pack of cigarettes nationwide is $5.61, the real cost in terms of lost lives and productivity is $18.05 per pack.”
If I read that correctly, it’s even worse than that sounds. When you add the price paid for the pack to the damages caused by the pack, every pack of cigarettes costs our economy $23.66 on the average.
And, even that may badly understate the true costs per pack. I’ve not seen the details of this study. But if it left out the dollar costs of the harm done by the second hand smoke generated even on nearby nonsmokers and small children, the real total may be closer to $30 a pack.
With the exception of the good done by some of the taxes in the purchase price of the pack, almost every other part of the cost is preventable waste dollarwise. And, that’s in addition to the pain and suffering caused.
But, when taxes make the cost to buy a pack go up significantly, the total amount smoked goes down both because some people quit or don’t start and because the remaining smokers cut down somewhat.
To me that means that sharply increased taxes on tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, etc enough to cut consumption by 60 % would both solve a problem with for the taxing governments AND improve our economy.
Suppose every US state added a dollar a pack to its existing taxes plus adding any amount necessary to total $2 a pack for those states where their current tax is less than $1 now -- and the US federal government also added $2 a pack in added taxes. By doing both several good things would happen. The price to buy a pack of cigarettes would jump to about $9 a pack. If that resulted in half as many cigarettes smoked, states and the US government would get the same net tax revenues or likely more. And, their economies would improve due to only half as many packs being sold that waste over $18.05 each.
That would make a net improvement of about $13.31 per pack smoked today in their economies. Instead of a 1,000 packs costing their economy $30,000, each pack would cost about $33.39, so the 500 packs sold instead would total $16,695, which is $13,305 less.
Also, it would help, if the counseling for smoking used let smokers in on the real harm done by smoking.
Even uneducated smokers have heard that some people who smoke get lung cancer. But they rarely know anyone personally who also smokes who that has happened to. And, in even the heaviest and most addicted smokers, only 25% of them will get lung cancer. So, on THAT issue they have a point.
What they do NOT know since they often are not well educated and no one has told them, is that smoking is more far more harmful, dramatically more harmful, than that and that ALL smokers, even very light smokers and very young smokers are harmed for sure by every single exposure they have to tobacco smoke. If they smoke, they have been harmed and are being harmed every single time.
One of the reasons fewer smokers try to quit and fewer of the people who try fail, is the vast majority of them have no clue about the real dangers of smoking.
The rest of the little problem with smoking is that smoking and second hand smoke cause about a third of ALL cancers, lung cancers are just the best known tip of the iceberg. The number of people who keep smoking once they begin who get some kind of cancer may well be closer to 50 or 60 %.
The big problem with smoking is that your health and ability to keep living depend on your lungs and your heart and blood vessels. Every exposure a smoker gets to tobacco smoke, harms both. These effects do NOT miss some smokers or new smokers or light smokers.
Even teen smokers test as having lung capacity of much older people for example. They also have elevated homocysteine which means all of their bodies are aging faster. Recent studies suggest this may mean they are more likely to get some kind of mental decline later too.
And, here’s more from my recent post on nondrug methods to lower high blood pressure.
“Even a few minutes exposure to tobacco smoke increases your blood pressure within minutes of your exposure.
But the long term consequences are much worse. Smoking or second hand smoke work in several ways to build up plaque in your blood vessels. This does the reverse of losing weight or taking supplements that relax your blood vessels. The smaller internal diameter this leaves in your blood vessels and the stiffer blood vessels this produces directly cause your blood pressure to go up and tend to prevent the supplements that might have relaxed your blood vessels from being able to do the job.
Even worse than that, being around tobacco smoke TRIGGERS heart attacks that people otherwise might not have had.
So, not only does tobacco smoke tend to permanently increase your blood pressure, it tends to directly cause one of the things you are trying to lower your high blood pressure to prevent.”
Every exposure to tobacco smoke has these effects. THIS problem does NOT miss some smokers. ALL of them are being harmed.
For the most part, the only smokers today who know this are those who are in the hospital recovering from a heart attack they survived. Often the doctors, who do know this, have told them and explained that if they want to recover and not get a worse heart attack, they MUST quit smoking.
So, for best health care cost reductions, governments need to tax tobacco products much more heavily than they do now and ensure everyone living in their area over the age of 9 or 10 knows what smoking really does to you and how dreadfully certain that harm is.
Today's Post: Thursday, 9-16-2010
Last Tuesday, 9-14, Reuters had almost that same headline for a story about research done at Penn State:
“Smoking cessation treatments cost-effective: U.S. study.”
The researchers said that for every $1 a state would spent on smoking cessation treatments, states will get back $1.26, amounting to a 26 percent return on their investment.
The researchers, compared the costs of drugs & counseling programs to try to help people quit smoking with the dollar costs of premature deaths, lost productivity and the health care costs from the smoking that are all prevented.
The article quotes Paul Billings of the American Lung Association who listed the estimated costs of smoking nationally.
"Smoking results in costs to the United States of more than $300 billion a year," told reporters in a news briefing.
That includes $67.5 billion in lost workplace productivity; $117 billion from the cost of people dying prematurely; and $116 billion in direct medical expenditures.
The article also listed these numbers on a per pack basis.:
“Although the average cost of a pack of cigarettes nationwide is $5.61, the real cost in terms of lost lives and productivity is $18.05 per pack.”
If I read that correctly, it’s even worse than that sounds. When you add the price paid for the pack to the damages caused by the pack, every pack of cigarettes costs our economy $23.66 on the average.
And, even that may badly understate the true costs per pack. I’ve not seen the details of this study. But if it left out the dollar costs of the harm done by the second hand smoke generated even on nearby nonsmokers and small children, the real total may be closer to $30 a pack.
With the exception of the good done by some of the taxes in the purchase price of the pack, almost every other part of the cost is preventable waste dollarwise. And, that’s in addition to the pain and suffering caused.
But, when taxes make the cost to buy a pack go up significantly, the total amount smoked goes down both because some people quit or don’t start and because the remaining smokers cut down somewhat.
To me that means that sharply increased taxes on tobacco, cigarettes, cigars, etc enough to cut consumption by 60 % would both solve a problem with for the taxing governments AND improve our economy.
Suppose every US state added a dollar a pack to its existing taxes plus adding any amount necessary to total $2 a pack for those states where their current tax is less than $1 now -- and the US federal government also added $2 a pack in added taxes. By doing both several good things would happen. The price to buy a pack of cigarettes would jump to about $9 a pack. If that resulted in half as many cigarettes smoked, states and the US government would get the same net tax revenues or likely more. And, their economies would improve due to only half as many packs being sold that waste over $18.05 each.
That would make a net improvement of about $13.31 per pack smoked today in their economies. Instead of a 1,000 packs costing their economy $30,000, each pack would cost about $33.39, so the 500 packs sold instead would total $16,695, which is $13,305 less.
Also, it would help, if the counseling for smoking used let smokers in on the real harm done by smoking.
Even uneducated smokers have heard that some people who smoke get lung cancer. But they rarely know anyone personally who also smokes who that has happened to. And, in even the heaviest and most addicted smokers, only 25% of them will get lung cancer. So, on THAT issue they have a point.
What they do NOT know since they often are not well educated and no one has told them, is that smoking is more far more harmful, dramatically more harmful, than that and that ALL smokers, even very light smokers and very young smokers are harmed for sure by every single exposure they have to tobacco smoke. If they smoke, they have been harmed and are being harmed every single time.
One of the reasons fewer smokers try to quit and fewer of the people who try fail, is the vast majority of them have no clue about the real dangers of smoking.
The rest of the little problem with smoking is that smoking and second hand smoke cause about a third of ALL cancers, lung cancers are just the best known tip of the iceberg. The number of people who keep smoking once they begin who get some kind of cancer may well be closer to 50 or 60 %.
The big problem with smoking is that your health and ability to keep living depend on your lungs and your heart and blood vessels. Every exposure a smoker gets to tobacco smoke, harms both. These effects do NOT miss some smokers or new smokers or light smokers.
Even teen smokers test as having lung capacity of much older people for example. They also have elevated homocysteine which means all of their bodies are aging faster. Recent studies suggest this may mean they are more likely to get some kind of mental decline later too.
And, here’s more from my recent post on nondrug methods to lower high blood pressure.
“Even a few minutes exposure to tobacco smoke increases your blood pressure within minutes of your exposure.
But the long term consequences are much worse. Smoking or second hand smoke work in several ways to build up plaque in your blood vessels. This does the reverse of losing weight or taking supplements that relax your blood vessels. The smaller internal diameter this leaves in your blood vessels and the stiffer blood vessels this produces directly cause your blood pressure to go up and tend to prevent the supplements that might have relaxed your blood vessels from being able to do the job.
Even worse than that, being around tobacco smoke TRIGGERS heart attacks that people otherwise might not have had.
So, not only does tobacco smoke tend to permanently increase your blood pressure, it tends to directly cause one of the things you are trying to lower your high blood pressure to prevent.”
Every exposure to tobacco smoke has these effects. THIS problem does NOT miss some smokers. ALL of them are being harmed.
For the most part, the only smokers today who know this are those who are in the hospital recovering from a heart attack they survived. Often the doctors, who do know this, have told them and explained that if they want to recover and not get a worse heart attack, they MUST quit smoking.
So, for best health care cost reductions, governments need to tax tobacco products much more heavily than they do now and ensure everyone living in their area over the age of 9 or 10 knows what smoking really does to you and how dreadfully certain that harm is.
Labels: two proven ways governments can improve their economies and cut health care costs, why educate smokers on the real and certain harm of smoking, why increase tobacco and cigarette taxes
posted by David at 2:43 PM
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