7 ms·
It's a pity you're being downvoted, because your first paragraph is factually correct. I guess people don't want to hear it if it conflicts with their (mistaken
by spangry 10y ago
It's a pity you're being downvoted, because your first paragraph is factually correct. I guess people don't want to hear it if it conflicts with their (mistaken) preconceptions.
- ClassyJacket 10y agoIt's been highly effective at lowering the smoking rate. In a country with taxpayer funded healthcare.
- spangry 10y agoCitation? If you're talking about Australia btw (where I live), I'd suggest that's a highly debatable proposition.
- flukus 10y agoThe smoking rate has dropped down to nearly single digits. They exact cause is impossible to tell.
- vacri 10y agoSmoking has been gradually phased out here over the course of 30 years. It used to be that around 40% of adults smoked, and now it's down to 10-12%. If you think that smoking rates haven't changed significantly here over the past few decades, you're either very young or very blinkered. Or just listen to smokers complaining how they're a dying breed (works on two levels, that one), or how you can't just ask anyone for a light anymore as fewer people carry lighters, and how bumming a cigarette off a stranger is no longer commonplace now that cigs are over a buck each.
- spangry 10y agoI'm not questioning that smoking rates have dropped. That's absolutely true, and an easily verifiable fact. What I'm questioning is the assertion that higher taxes on cigarettes have been the primary cause of this reduction in the smoking rate. It's important that we carefully account for all the factors at play and arrive at a considered answer. If we do this, we then know the most effective way to combat, and hopefully one day, eliminate, smoking. It really kills me that there seems to be a lot of lazy thinking around this subject. It has for a number of years, in fact. I hope this isn't taken as an 'appeal to authority' argument, but I'm an economist who has worked in tax policy for a number of years, during which time I actually advised a couple of Australian Prime Ministers and their Cabinets on excise tax. I'm not trying to be a contrarian here. If people know what is and is not effective, then they are in a better position to pressure their elected representatives to take effective measures to combat smoking.
- village-idiot 10y agoSocial pressure probably dominates the total cause of smoking reduction, I would bet. I personally won't join a friend outside a bar for their smoke: it's cold and I hate the smell, I'll stay in here thanks. Also a lot of people actively find smoking and smokers disgusting, which eats away at the "cool" factor it used to have.
- brokenmachine 10y agoI'm a very happy non-smoker but I would think that the biggest reason for smokers to stop nowadays is the leper colony stigma aspect. I would think that smokers (rightfully) feel like a shunned minority when they are told to smoke in alleys far away from the general population. They have to make a special effort to go somewhere to smoke because they can no longer light up at a restaurant or while they're doing errands. It's hard to pretend you're "cool" when you're standing by yourself and society doesn't want you anywhere near them. So there's no coolness and no convenience.
- Khaine 10y agoI think that the banning of smoking in clubs, pubs, and cafes had a significant effect. Now if you want to smoke you need to leave all your friends who don't smoke leave the club and then queue to get back in. Doing this makes you feel like an outsider to your own friendship group. I know the clubs complained bitterly that it lowered their revenue.
- josinalvo 10y agoWhile I applaud your scientific rigor, why not do everything that might work and leave it at that? As far as I am concerned, a cigarette tax should stand until proven harmful, not only if proven beneficial.
- spangry 10y agoYou know what? Screw it. Believe whatever you want.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davegardner 10y ago'Curbing the epidemic: Governments and the economics of tobacco control'[1], World Bank, Washington DC, 1999, pp. 37–45 and C Gallet and J List, 'Cigarette demand: meta-analysis of elasticities'[2], Health Economics, 12/10, 2003, pp. 821–835. According to a systematic review of studies of tobacco elasticities the average price elasticity for teenagers was -1.43 and -0.76 for young adults. As such, a 10% increase in tobacco price could be expected to decrease the tobacco consumption of teenagers by around 14%, and that of young adults by around 7.6%. [1] http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/914041468176678949/pdf/multi-page.pdf http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/914041468176678949... [2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.765/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.765/abstract
- tmnvix 10y ago> In a country with taxpayer funded healthcare. I believe that taxes paid by smokers help to subsidise the healthcare of non-smokers, not the other way around. Or put it this way - if all Australians stopped smoking then either everyone's taxes would have to go up to cover the shortfall or the quality of the healthcare would be lower.
- nl 10y agoThis isn't true. Tobacco excise raises about $2B a year(1), but smoking costs around $30B a year(2). A 10% increase in the excise reduces the smoking rate around 4%, so simplistic analysis indicates that around $200M raised would save nearly $1.5B (lots of simplification and assumptions there obviously). (1) http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201617/Tobacco http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departm... (2) http://www.health.gov.au/tobacco http://www.health.gov.au/tobacco
- aplummer 10y agoExactly, smoking costs a lot more than the taxes raised. Worse, it uses up the free hospital beds and there is a waitlist.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rjbhtrf 10y agoThe main cost of smoking in that study is value of life, the cost of premature deaths. But in terms of raw dollars it's different. If smokers die 10 years earlier, that's 10 years less of unproductive period in life, retirement. No pensions, no medical costs, no living expenses. They pay and save for retirement, but don't use it.
- nl 10y agoActually medical costs associated with smoking are extremely significant. I'm not aware of any studies showing that they are less than average costs associated with death in old age.
- ageofwant 10y agoLowering the smoking rate increases health cost significantly. Old age medicare is the bulk of state funded healthcare. Smokers die young so their net burden on the healthcare system is significantly reduced.
- nl 10y agoThis is the second time in this thread I've seen this claimed. I haven't seen any evidence showing this, and in Australia at least it's difficult to prove. For example, residential aged care is expensive, but generally privately funded and a major source of employment. I do agree that killing people as soon as they retire is the economic thing to do. Unsure that will win many elections, but who knows....
- ClassyJacket 10y agoThe ageing population is why we need to invest heavily in automation, and get away from the "creating jobs is good" mindset and into the "creating value is good" mindset. Instead of trying to find ways to make people retire later and work more, let's find ways to make people not need to work as much.
- sten 10y agoI see this quoted all the time and I wonder if it takes into account the total economic benifit of the individual. I'll conceed that an individual who lives longer will (on average) cost more in health care. I also believe it when I hear that lung cancer is a cheaper way to die than many other ways. But what about the lost 20-30 years of economic output that would have taken place if the individual lived? On top of that we see benefits that can't easily be calculated, like being able to leave children with their grandparents for care. Can't do that if they're dead.
- mistermann 10y agoI've read a study before (sorry don't have a link) and the timing tends to work quite well, you smoke and work until retirement, then die - give or take a few years. > being able to leave children with their grandparents for care. Don't recall that being addressed though, but it's almost certainly less than pension.
- marklgr 10y agoThe language is heavily loaded. What about tobbaco being punishing for society (especially passive smoking), or tobacco companies being punishing for their addicted user base? Taxes drive people to meth? This badly sounds like fear mongering from lobbies, "let people smoke our cigarettes, or they'll become junkies".