Smokers

[PetrolTed]

So, motorists' liberty is being squeezed at every opportunity to save around 3,000 lives a year.

Smoking in the UK kills 120,000 a year and 360,000 require treatment costing £1.7 billion.

Priorities?

[angusfaldo]

Even worse Ted is that there are significantly more hospital acquired infections leading to death than there are deaths due to road accidents. Yet the best the government/NHS can do is to employ one or possibly two infection control specialists per hospital (also tasked with covering the community).

Piorities. Pffffff - Blair's girls don't know the meaning of the word.

[mannginger]

As a smoker and a driver I would much rather be persecuted for my smoking, if I am to be persecuted for anything. After all, I like to think that I can control what my car does, yet my smoke wanders around indescrminately.

Smoking cameras anyone...?

£20 fine everytime you are caught having a sly tab behind the office?

[kenny chim 4]

So, motorists' liberty is being squeezed at every opportunity to save around 3,000 lives a year.


I guess you don't smoke then Ted..
I do, but thin roll-ups only- though I realise it is a
suicidal habit.

[JohnL]

Railways - how many billions are being spent in reaction to a dozen or so lives lost per year on average?

Ah, but there's nothing like a good headline for the politicians. The criterion for spend priority is not, how many lives per £ can we save, but how many votes per £ can we gain.

[HarryW]

It's more down to the bad PR associated to the (£)cost/life when it comes to determining how much money is spent in preventing deaths.
In most industries the figure is nearer £2-3M /life, in something more high profile and public blind panic inducing like the nuclear industry the figure is nearer £400M/life .
The fact that the government has felt the need to bang on about road safety it has created a rod for it's own back by pushing up the value of a road related death.
Nobody goes on about the deaths for contracting infections in hospitals so the cost/life is currently considered 'acceptable'. The higher the profile becomes then the £/death figure will rise, only then will something will be done about it.
As callous as it sounds its pure economics to faceless people.

Harry

[rubyV8S]

So, 360,000 smokers cost NHS £1.7bn per year?

Taking an average of 20 tabs a day, those 360,000 smokers will contribute over £500m per year into the coffers(no pun intended).

If the number of smokers requiring treatment is approx 1 in 20 in any one year, then at least £10 billion is received by the government from smokers in tax, £1.7 billion paid out, pretty good return in my books (unless you get cheap smokes from our galic cousins!)

[ultimasimon]

mannginger said: As a smoker and a driver I would much rather be persecuted for my smoking, if I am to be persecuted for anything. After all, I like to think that I can control what my car does, yet my smoke wanders around indescrminately.

Smoking cameras anyone...?

£20 fine everytime you are caught having a sly tab behind the office?

Absolutely brilliant !! I would welcome smoking cameras's. I gave up smoking four years ago (well almost). Will give up again when my cheque arrives from my re-mortgage.(Due to waiting from non-competent solicitors and the stress involved) If the government is hell bent on reducing fatalities and monitoring fatal statistics then why don't they push for a non smoking capital, everything else seems meaningless. IMHO if you want to smoke cigs, as they are seriously life threatening, then lets put the motoring tax on them (more so than cars by statistics) then lets not allow the government to take the *iss, as we all agree that smoking is going to damage you eventually and more so than the gross total from car accidents.

If insurance is based on statistics of vulnerability through bad driving and records, then what does cigarettes base as a national statistic??

Furthermore what will happen to car insurance / motoring costs when the government can no longer gain revenue from the tobacco industry after it's had it's arse sued from the general public??

[Hut49]

rubyV8S said: So, 360,000 smokers cost NHS £1.7bn per year?

Taking an average of 20 tabs a day, those 360,000 smokers will contribute over £500m per year into the coffers(no pun intended).

If the number of smokers requiring treatment is approx 1 in 20 in any one year, then at least £10 billion is received by the government from smokers in tax, £1.7 billion paid out, pretty good return in my books (unless you get cheap smokes from our galic cousins!)

But the government doesn't aim to get a "good return" from smokers by taxation! The £10 billion raised through taxation on cigarettes (equivalent to about 80% of the retail price) is partly a deterrent to smoking and partly a good way of raising revenue from a source that has least negative effect on the economy.

Your point about "cheap smokes" is potentially important, particularly if this includes cigarettes smuggled into the UK. This currently accounts for up to 10% of all cigarettes consumed but some estimates have put it as high as 20%. The shortfall in taxation due to this is significant. It will have to be made up from somewhere if it can't be contained.

[grahambell]

rubyV8S said: So, 360,000 smokers cost NHS £1.7bn per year?

Taking an average of 20 tabs a day, those 360,000 smokers will contribute over £500m per year into the coffers(no pun intended).

If the number of smokers requiring treatment is approx 1 in 20 in any one year, then at least £10 billion is received by the government from smokers in tax, £1.7 billion paid out, pretty good return in my books (unless you get cheap smokes from our galic cousins!)

But that's still 360,000 unecessarily sick smokers adding extra strain and backlog to an already stretched NHS. Then there's the fact that smoking materials are involved in around half of domestic fires, costing yet more lives and adding to the costs for both fire brigade and ambulance (NHS again!)and pushing up house insurance premiums.

And no, I don't smoke and never have. Too much bloody sense.

[andymadmak]

I don't smoke. Never have, never will.
It killed my Mum, is killing my Father in Law.
I find the whole habit disgusting.
I avoided dating women who smoked.
I object to secondary (aka passive) smoking
I object to my clothes being made to stink like an ashtray on a night out to the pub/club etc.
I'm tired of towns and the countryside looking like one big ashtray - has anyone else noticed how much of our litter is smoking related - old packets, fag ends, foil, etc.

BUT!

I'm even more against the idea that Governments should be out there telling people how to run their own lives.
Today smoking, tomorrow drinking, the day after the ability to go where we want when we want, the day after that it will be what to say and what not to say.
We already ban enough things in this country. We certainly don't need to ban or regulate any more, even when "powerful economic arguements" can be deployed!
Just cos I hate smoking personally in no way allows me the right to impose my values on others. Most people know I'm anti all drugs too, even the so called soft stuff. I would not allow them at all. Does that make me a hypocrite? I think not, basically because those things are already banned, and have been for some time. I see no reason to add to societies ills, but by the same token why shouldn't it be allowed to enjoy the ones it already has?!

A little mutual respect and tolerance is all thats required. And if anyone wants to see this rant as a metaphor for other things going on right now in this country then so be it.

Andy 400se

[Gargamel]

If you want less sick smokers and to cut the smoking population - make it easier to give up and reduce the toxicity of cigerretes. Aside from tobacco an average fag has some other additives to make them more addictive - including cadmium

I smoke about 10 a day - I have given up in the past and will likely give up again soon (i am 31) I once gave up for five years.

However the 10bn in revenue quoted is only for 360,000 people - there are over 5m smokers in the uk - you do the math - it is a *lot* of money in tax.

[Qualia]

Despite the numerous "smoking kills" campaigns the government funds, they don't actually want us to stop. Far too much money to be made....
I would love to see the long faces if suddenly all smokers kicked the habit. I can picture Gordon Brown launching a new campaign:

"Do YOUR bit for the nation - Smoke!!"

[johno]

I smoke, I drive fast and I drink excessively on occasion.

Shoot me !

Cheers

Mark
PS - If it wasn't for the likes of me paying for private health care it wouldn't matter. The NHS would collapse completely and taxes would be far higher to try and cope with the demand, so I am unrepentent about my smoking or my drinking.


>> Edited by johno on Monday 2nd December 11:15

[deltaf]

Smoking isnt given a high priority in the country, simply because the government is in the pockets of the tobacco companies.
Think how much they get in the tax take from the duty on fags, and then ahem,"party donations" to keep Blur and friends sweet.
Look at the farce with advertising and F1.
One other little known fact is this: Did you know that fag manufacturers have been doing a little "engineering" of the product?
Specifically the addition of extra nicotine to keep their users hooked.
Nice to know theyve got a captive market isnt it?
Just shows what their priorities are,

[pbrettle]

andymadmak said:
I'm tired of towns and the countryside looking like one big ashtray - has anyone else noticed how much of our litter is smoking related - old packets, fag ends, foil, etc.

Andy,

I agree, as a smoker I find it disgusting that we are forced to dump litter / fag ends etc all over the place. We are now forced to smoke outside (strangely my smoking drops off around winter!!!) - but we are poorly catered for... Increasingly it is seen as a cost saving measure....

And finally anyone else noticed that we have a great lack of bins in public places...? We have the terrorist threats for that one. You dont find bins in a city, town, at a railway station or many other public locations....

I would be only happy to smoke in areas for smokers...as long as they have bins and "stub-out" areas....

Cheers,

Paul

[Nils Baker]

About 10 years ago I wrote an essay at Uni about the relationship between the government and anti-smoking campaigns. In the year in question( I think it was 1990) the government spent 6 times as much telling people to give up heroin, which only killed about 100 people that year, than they did telling people to stop smoking which last year killed over 120,000 people. Last year The Treasury earned £9,510 million in revenue from tobacco tax for the financial
year 2000-2001: This is a major chunk of the health services spending and far outweighs the cost of patching up people daft enough to smoke. In fact I may start just to help prop up our flaging economy

[Froth]

The important figure is that 1000 people a year die of passive smoking in Britain. That means 1000 people die every year who have never had a cigarette but who were unfortunate enough to be near someone else who was smoking.

As far as I'm concerned that's manslaughter.

It's high time smoking was banned in all public places. If someone wants to kill themselves they should do so in their home not where they are endangering any old sod who happens to be walking by.

[HarryW]

Froth said: The important figure is that 1000 people a year die of passive smoking in Britain. That means 1000 people die every year who have never had a cigarette but who were unfortunate enough to be near someone else who was smoking.

As far as I'm concerned that's manslaughter.

It's high time smoking was banned in all public places. If someone wants to kill themselves they should do so in their home not where they are endangering any old sod who happens to be walking by.

And the source of that statistic is .
Not trying to pick a fight here, but I always go onto the back foot when stats are banded about.
Not that I do not beilieve the passive smoking theory. Its just that I believe all statistics have a slant on them, the secret it to try to understand what that slant is .
I believe that much more pain and suffering comes from being behind a bus or lorry, spilling its diesel shite out, how many deaths are attributed to that? will you find stats for them? probably not, but you can be sure that when there is a requirement to milk diesel for more taxes the Stats will appear .

:Note to self do not be so mistrusting of statistics or government:

Harry

PS All IMHO and not meant to offend any persons herein at PH who may happen to read this waffle.

[workshy fopp]

It's high time smoking was banned in all public places. If someone wants to kill themselves they should do so in their home not where they are endangering any old sod who happens to be walking by.

So by that logic all cars should be banned too.