My Perspective on Smoking

My wife and I met back in high school. At the time, she was a smoker. Thankfully, her availability was limited to the generosity of her friends due to her age. Still, I have always considered one cigarette, even “just once in awhile,” to be too much. After threatening not to kiss her anymore if she continued, she finally conceded and hasn’t smoked since.

Why on earth anyone smokes is beyond my comprehension. Tobacco is a deadly, addictive substance. It causes some of the world’s worst health problems. It eventually kills about half the people who use it regularly and is responsible for fully one in 10 premature adult deaths. On top of creating problems, however, it exaggerates existing health conditions. Does anyone else get the impression that smoking a cigarette is like putting a loaded gun in your mouth and slowly pulling the trigger?

And for what? A moment’s gratification? There are a hundred other perfectly safe and effective ways to relieve stress. I know how defensive you smokers must be getting reading this. “How can you say that having never smoked?” Because I, like every person in the world, have had stress in my life and have found other ways to deal with it. Vent to a loved one or a friend, go for a brisk workout, immerse yourself in a hobby. Do what you need to do to relax and take your mind off of the problem. If anything, reaching for a cigarette is just being lazy; you can cope with your problems if you just put some thought and effort into it.

That’s just one argument. Let’s examine this from a different angle. Let’s assume that you smoke, say, half a pack a day. By most definitions, this is pretty light. Then, let’s assume that you buy average quality cigarettes at about $40 per carton (which works out to $4 per pack or $2 per day). Smoking half a pack of cheap cigarettes per day costs you $730 per year. Assuming you start at legal age, 18, you will pay approximately $43,000 for cigarettes by the time your habit kills you around age 76, seven years sooner than everyone else according to even the smoker-biased estimates. Congratulations, you’ve just flushed $43,000 down the toilet and knocked seven years off of your life. These numbers, of course, are much worse for most smokers, who generally start smoking younger, smoke more than half a pack a day, buy more expensive cigarettes, or any combination of the three.

Some people wonder at why I’m so thoroughly against smoking. Let me give a sobering perspective on the topic. About 10 million people will die as a result of tobacco use every year by 2020. To put that figure into perspective, about 11 million people died in the Holocaust. And I hate hearing the, “It’s their choice,” line, because it’s gotten very old. These figures include people who die from second-hand smoke as well as infant miscarriages. Neither of these groups have much choice about being exposed to tobacco. We’ll have a Holocaust worth of death every year, including innocent victims, all because people refuse to stop using tobacco.

I don’t consider this stance harsh because there is absolutely no defending tobacco use. We have had the data in front of us for well over half a century, but the worst the government has done is to tax the industry and limit its ability to advertise. Why, when it’s obviously quite harmful, is it allowed to be legal? After all, cocaine and heroine were once legal but made illegal once their harmful effects became known.

The answer is, as you might have guessed, money. Tobacco companies still make a tidy profit, more than enough to lobby their product to lawmakers. The government also makes a profit from its taxes on tobacco. Thus, there is no legislative incentive to make it illegal. Nevermind that millions are dying and will continue to do so because this antiquated and misguided mindset that smoking is harmless is allowed to persist. As long as the right people are lining their pockets, tobacco will never be allowed to take its rightful place among its restricted brethren.

I think this rant has gone on long enough, but there are hundreds of other valid arguments against tobacco. It’s inconsiderate to use it, immoral to sell it, and downright wrong to keep it legal. In the future, contemporary opinion will look back and wonder at how crazy we must have been to keep it around even with all of the facts in front of us. If anyone has a valid argument to the contrary, I have yet to hear it.

Economics and Social Policy XXV

Included in the December 17th issue of Economics and Social Policy….