should us smokers really be taxed so much

[Mrr T]

grahamn said:

Don't pay the taxes, buy a £25 return on the ferry and drive 1/2 hour into Belguim and get a load for £4.40 a packet. Jobs a good un.

An even better idea is to buy the tobacco and tubes and make your own. Assuming you buy the tobacco in Belgium then about £1 a packet.

[captainzep]

supersingle said:

I'm pretty sure obesity has overtaken smoking in the death stakes these days.

It may do one day, but not yet. The claim tends to used by newspaper headline writers rather than scientists.



"Obesity" is a blunt descriptor for risk too. Recent meta-analysis has shown that metabolically healthy obese people have same death rate as those with a healthy BMI. It's only when you get problems like diabetes or its precursor 'metabolic syndrome' that the risk really starts to ramp up. This gives rise to the finding that a smoker is more than twice as likely to die compared to a non-smoker, but an obese person’s risk is only about one fifth more likely to die compared to a person with a normal body mass index.

[Mrr T]

captainzep said:

It may do one day, but not yet. The claim tends to used by newspaper headline writers rather than scientists.



"Obesity" is a blunt descriptor for risk too. Recent meta-analysis has shown that metabolically healthy obese people have same death rate as those with a healthy BMI. It's only when you get problems like diabetes or its precursor 'metabolic syndrome' that the risk really starts to ramp up. This gives rise to the finding that a smoker is more than twice as likely to die compared to a non-smoker, but an obese person’s risk is only about one fifth more likely to die compared to a person with a normal body mass index.

Where do you get the evidence that a smoker is 50% more likely to die than a non smoker?

That is a totally ridiculous figure.

[eatcustard]

Dont the retarded smokers die on average 10 years younger than none smokers?

Thats a win win, they pay lots of tax, but also keeping the population of oldies lower

[Pothole]

CubanPete said:

Those are only the direct costs though.

Work lost with smokers disappearing off every hour for ten minutes, cost of carers, cost of health issues caused by passive smoking. Its also pretty unpleasant for none smokers.

But fundamentally the main motivation of the tax (like alcohol and fuel duty) is as a deterrent.

I think it is fair.

Not forgetting the cost of clearing up the disgusting filth they seem to think it's OK to leave in their wake EVERYWHERE. I think it's too fair.

[hman]

Stop smoking.

or....

Pay a fortune for your disgusting smelly foul unhealthy habit which endangers others around you.


Its not rocket science is it?

[Mrr T]

hman said:

Stop smoking.

or....

Pay a fortune for your disgusting smelly foul unhealthy habit which endangers others around you.


Its not rocket science is it?

Just to be clear despite all the hype there are no reliable studies that show passive smoking causes any adverse health effects.

[Rovinghawk]

captainzep said:

The taxation on smoking boils down to a political need to demonstrably improve the health status of a nation.

The taxation on smoking boils down to a political need to acquire money.

[bodhi]

hman said:

Stop smoking.

or....

Pay a fortune for your disgusting smelly foul unhealthy habit which endangers others around you.


Its not rocket science is it?

If quitting smoking leads to attitudes like yours, I'll take the second option every day of the week. Plus given that I spend a lot of my time in airports, I can get the cost quite a bit lower too. Sounding like a win win so far.

[clonmult]

Ilovejapcrap said:

A pack of 20 fags is now 9 quid. Is this really fair?

Count how many are actually in the pack.

Look at the number on the side.

They are typically packs of 19 these days.

Which is scandalous.

[CAPP0]

Interesting slant on which way the majority of the responses have gone on here. I commented my thoughts on smoking on the "plain packaging" thread a couple of weeks ago (basically much as has been repeated many times in this one, dirty, smelly, antisocial, etc etc) and got called a fascist for my views!

[captainzep]

Mrr T said:

Where do you get the evidence that a smoker is 50% more likely to die than a non smoker?

That is a totally ridiculous figure.

In this case I've based it on the fairly well known meta analysis carried out by Shavelle, Paculdo, Strauss, & Kush, (2008). They looked at smoking mortality across a number of existing studies and aimed to develop a combined 'relative risk' (RR) score. In their discussion of the results they say "A rule of thumb is that the RR for smokers compared with non-smokers is roughly 2..." -meaning that you have twice the risk of a premature death as a smoker than a non-smoker. This hardly an earth shattering or (given the '000s of studies that have looked at smoking and mortality over the last 6 decades) particularly contentious revelation.

http://www.w.lifeexpectancy.com/articles/smoking.p...

The point I was making in comparison with obesity is that according to Flegal, Kit, Orpana, and Graubard's meta-analysis (2013) obese people only have a RR of 1.18 which is lower than many might think.

[captainzep]

Rovinghawk said:

captainzep said:

The taxation on smoking boils down to a political need to demonstrably improve the health status of a nation.

The taxation on smoking boils down to a political need to acquire money.

All taxation does that.

The particular focus on smoking is used to discourage the purchase.

[TooMany2cvs]

Rovinghawk said:

The taxation on smoking boils down to a political need to acquire money.

If they're going to spend it, they need to acquire it.

[bad company]

hman said:

Stop smoking.

or....

Pay a fortune for your disgusting smelly foul unhealthy habit which endangers others around you.


Its not rocket science is it?

The question is how much of a fortune. Smokers are already heavily taxed.

[Funkycoldribena]

Im so glad I grew up in the eighties when there werent so many do-gooders about,it was lovely smoking in work,the pub etc.Now we're infested with the bubblewrap brigade who spend their lives worrying about walking 2 miles behind a smoker or panicking because theres a diesel in the same road.Seriously,get a life,stop worrying about every particle that might contaminate you and remember non smokers die everyday.

[bad company]

Funkycoldribena said:

Im so glad I grew up in the eighties when there werent so many do-gooders about,it was lovely smoking in work,the pub etc.Now we're infested with the bubblewrap brigade who spend their lives worrying about walking 2 miles behind a smoker or panicking because theres a diesel in the same road.Seriously,get a life,stop worrying about every particle that might contaminate you and remember non smokers die everyday.

Same applied to me albeit in the seventies.

Nometheless -

[motco]

When I were a lad...

Seriously, I often travelled in a 1940s car with two parents and an uncle who all smoked. Lorries in the fifties belched out so much black smoke that on hills it was literally impossible to see past some of them. I am, to the best of my knowledge, still alive.

[captainzep]

Funkycoldribena said:

...remember non smokers die everyday.

But sifting through the metaphorical pile of corpses, doctors have found that most of the non-smoking ones lived longer and lived without chronic disease for longer.

Having witnessed the suffering, you can't blame the logical feckers for suggesting a few legal and social policy changes?

[otolith]

RYH64E said:

It's a very fair tax imo, after all, how many other taxes can you name that can be completely avoided without incurring the ire of HMRC?

Income tax, national insurance (don't work), fuel tax (don't drive), air passenger duty (don't fly), VAT on food (stick to the zero rated items), VAT on clothing (only buy donated goods from charity shops)...