[greggoB]

"In 2024, smoking cost the public finances in England £16.5bn, more than double the £6.8bn raised through tobacco taxes." [0]

"The NHS’s expenditure on smoking-related health issues remains high, corroborated by the reported £20. 6 billion cost to public finances in the UK in 2022, with approximately £2. 2 billion attributed to the NHS" [1]

It seems NHS spending is only a part of the story. Also note that I'm only quoting cost to public finances, the overall societal costs are cited as being much higher.

[0] https://ash.org.uk/key-topics/the-economic-impact-of-smoking

[1] https://themaplesrehab.com/how-much-money-does-the-nhs-spend...

[mytailorisrich]

First, you corroborate that my data are indeed correct.

Second, I debunked the argument that illness treatment is paid by the tax payer, when indeed the data show that this is not the case as tax revenue far exceeds cost

Then, adding fuzzier and fuzzier unrelated things and add them up all equally as "costs" (like a very widely defined "economic cost", and peolple do not exist to maximise their labour output) to tilt the balance the other way is not an honest take, it is fudging the numbers to fit a narrative.

Frankly that fits the overall thinking on this topic and others: people cannot decide for themselves reharding their own lives, things must be banned, dissenting opinions are "wrong" and must suppressed. And we are back to exactly what the article is about!

[roryirvine]

Those "costs" clearly aren't zero, though.

Even if they don't die from a directly smoking-related cause, smokers experience more chronic illness than non-smokers, and it tends to start earlier in life. Non-NHS costs include sickness benefits, absences from work, and reduction in lifetime earnings. And then there are the opportunity costs from whatever else they might have spent the money and time on, not to mention what they might have achieved in life had they not developed emphysema in their early 40s.

It's certainly possible to argue about the exact figures, and ASH are hardly a neutral third-party. But it's more dishonest than not to pretend that they don't exist.

[mytailorisrich]

What cost is "loss of lifetime earnings" because you die early while still of working age? And cost to whom? (You're dead).

How can you add that like-for-like to actual financial cost to NHS? (Which was the otiginal issue of the discussion, remember?)

Shifting the topic and trying to add random things as "cost" is fudging the numbers, so dishoneest, indeed. It is obvious and I am hoping you see it, too.

Bottom line is that smokers do pay for the cost of their healthcare so this is a fair system and people can then make their own decisions regarding their own lives (which is what a free, liberal society is about).

[greggoB]

> so this is a fair system

Well, no, the cost of their own smoking-induced illness isn't the only cost, as mentioned before what about the healthcare costs of people who pick up 2nd or 3rd hand smoke?

I think the point we are making thay you don't want to acknowledge is that the cost to society, healthcare or otherwise, simply cannot be made up for with sin taxes on cigarettes. If we tried that, a pack would need to cost like 10x or more of what it does now, and even then it's debatable.

[mytailorisrich]

Unless we have finer data, I would assume that 2nd and 3rd hand smoke is included in "smoking-related" so in the cost figure. It has also to be much less than actual smoking so will not massively change the NHS cost.

We have already established that healthcare costs are more than covered by existing tax.

Arguing and trying to make up additional "costs" is, again, just fudging the numbers and clutching at straws at this point...

Live and let live.