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.
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.
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.
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.
Doing this makes you feel like an outsider to your own friendship group. I know the clubs complained bitterly that it lowered their revenue.
As far as I am concerned, a cigarette tax should stand until proven harmful, not only if proven beneficial.
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...
[2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.765/abstract
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.
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_Departm...
Worse, it uses up the free hospital beds and there is a waitlist.
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.
-Tobacco and alcohol tax: 40 billion PLN 2013 [1]
-Personal income tax 42 billion PLN 2012 [2]
-Healthcare budget: 64.5 billion PLN 2013 [3]
Cigarettes (and to a lesser extent alcohol) account for 2/3 of whole healthcare, for everyone!
And smokers pay retirement insurance for whole life, statistically getting nothing. Especially when being male; females have 5 years lower retirement age and live 7.8 years longer. 5+7.8+10=22.8 years difference. So a male smoker pays every month, but gets nothing.
[1] - http://natemat.pl/77753,alkohol-i-papierosy-sa-dla-polskiego...
[2] - http://www.pit.pl/aktualnosci-podatkowe/2011/archiwum-2011-v...
[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5506.0
[2] http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/C...
Your tax/public expenditure curves cross roughly when you turn 62. By 70 the government spends on you more than twice what you pay in taxes. 75 it's 3 times as much. 80, it's 4.5. The expenditure curve is pretty much asymptotic by that point.
Since we're throwing around random opinions...
Would you say that the kind of person that continues such an expensive habit nowadays despite what everyone knows about smoking is the kind of person who "pays and saves for retirement"?
Poorer, less-educated people are much more likely to smoke. How about we also take this into account when we're speculating about how much they might be saving.
In Poland it's 19,52% of salary. https://www.mpips.gov.pl/ubezpieczenia-spoleczne/ubezpieczen...
In Australia it's 9% http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/australia%E2%80%99s-retirement-syst...
$30B, with just over 3M smokers in Australia is $10,000 per smoker per year. I call bullshit.
Even in NZ the health department were only claiming a cost of $1.9B per year and that was controversial. An anti-smoking group's report in NZ only managed to stretch it as far as $350M per year.
Edit:
Ok, I found the paper where they came up with the $30B figure.
"The average intangible value of the loss of one year’s living in 2004/05 prices was calculated to be $53,267."
That is where the number comes from. Like I said, hyperbole.
Also, some napkin calculations: $2b / 3m smokers = $666 / year. $666 / 52 = $13. The average smoker is paying a lot more than that in tax each week (a single pack is $20 - $30).
The quoted $2B tax revenue is bunkum too. NZ was taking in $1B seven years ago with a population 1/5 of Australia's and with prices 1/2 what they are now.
Here are figures from the latest Commonwealth budget, and the latest inter-generational report: http://imgur.com/a/UWFAa
Tobacco excise takes in $9.4bn in revenue per year, and is expected to hit north of $10.5bn over the next four years, due to the recent excise hike. This will make tobacco the largest 'earner' when it comes to excise and customs duty (even beating diesel and petrol).
The IG report contends (as it has for many years now) that when people hit about age 62, their individual tax / revenue curves cross-over. By 70, they are receiving public expenditure 2.5 times greater than the tax they pay. By 75 it's about 3 times. By 80, it's about 4.5. And before anyone plays the "you're a monster" card, I also think it's good that people are living longer and not dying from smoking related illness.
But I would suggest that public finance is not the strongest grounds to argue anti-smoking on. The fact that it kills so many people, in pretty awful ways, is more than enough justification for us to try and hasten tobacco's demise. Please think carefully about the issue, because you'll be better able to pressure our politicians to take more effective action (and also make it impossible for them to quietly go backwards).
I agree that we shouldn't be arguing in favour of anti-smoking regulations on the grounds of financial cost (esp. with regard to the health budget). There are, as you say, much better grounds to base the argument on. Exaggerated figures such as the $2B / $30B given above just help to discredit the entire argument. I prefer that my government not try to manipulate me with dodgy statistics (even if we largely agree on the goal of reducing smoking).
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....
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.
> 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.
And your argument is particularly silly - do you think people die of cancer overnight? No, they hang in there for years, and as a compassionate society we treat them for their terrible disease until they die. Of course, there are many other things that smoking can do before someone contracts a fatal condition: gangrenous limbs that must be amputated, rooting teeth and gums that must be operated on, non-fatal strokes that prevent them from working and must be subsidised, cataracts and blindness, hip and bone fractures, diabetes and increased recovery times from surgery all contribute to the cost.
And we have an additional cost that's not obvious to those outside Australia: bushfires. In fact, it's estimated that a quarter of all deaths in fires were due to cigarettes being improperly disposed. I believe the cost is something like $150 million a year. And that's not even putting a cost on the deaths of these people to their families and friends.
Also aged people put money into the economy in various ways so it's not a lost cause.
Aged people are also great baby sitters. You know day cares are insanely expensive. Grandparents are a lot cheaper.
Plus let's not kill people to save money. Many chose to euthanize themselves once they become bed ridden.
I know I would rather die than live a life where my memory is not functional. If I am bed ridden, I would happily say good bye to my family and call it a good life.