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Comment by wepple | Hacker News Reader

One consideration here that many folks (US in particular) may not consider is that smokers put a very substantial burden on the NZ healthcare system which is taxpayer funded.

Of course, there are plenty of counter examples to this such as obesity (NZ is #2 in obesity only to US at #1) where the costs don’t result in any substantial regulation or prohibition. Alcohol is a ginormous topic too, NZ has an extremely unhealthy relationship with it.

I think I agree that the stripping of liberties is uncomfortable, even if I’m totally opposed to smoking.

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I remember looking at the figures ages ago for a different country and if you netted everything out smoking saved the government money.

For example here is something from the UK from the IEA:

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/08/smoking-and-dri...

    The Smoking and the Public Purse report argues that the government spends £3.6bn treating smoking-related diseases on the NHS and up to £1bn collecting cigarette butts and extinguishing smoking-related house fires.

    The government saves £9.8bn annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments due to premature mortality, the IEA said.

    Meanwhile, the government brings in £9.5bn a year in duty paid on tobacco, the IEA said. Suggesting this means smoking produces a net saving to public finances of £14.7bn a year, at current rates of consumption.

I think people just assume automatically smokers are a drain on the healthcare system but I wouldn't assume this without having a deep look at the figures.

Wow, fascinating. I’m not entirely surprised that the taxes cover the healthcare costs (probably similar in NZ where taxes on smoking are very high), but I was startled by the idea of early mortality being a saving.

I would point out that healthcare isn’t an entirely financial game; struggles to get nurses and doctors still mean that smokers will pull resources away from other areas

Metrics are useless, by this line of logic we should encourage older people to kill themselves because they consume more resources than the younger who produce them.

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