Posted on 01/25/2007 2:35:39 AM PST by SheLion
Go any day to a little store on Route 302 in Conway that sells mostly cigarettes and beer. The lot is full of cars with Maine plates and people are coming out with shopping carts full of cartons of cigarettes.
Go over to the Wal*Mart nearby and that lot is full of Maine cars as well.
New motto will be "Never mind living free; we know what's best for you and will make you do it for your own good."
Oops...my bad....silly me.....LOL
I am surprised ME does not tax their residents for leaving the hood of their car up for more than 24 hours.
Go any day to a little store on Route 302 in Conway that sells mostly cigarettes and beer. The lot is full of cars with Maine plates and people are coming out with shopping carts full of cartons of cigarettes.
Go over to the Wal*Mart nearby and that lot is full of Maine cars as well.
Are they all Maine people shopping in NH? Is that what you mean? I know the Mainers who live down by the border go over to NH to shop for liquor and cigarettes. The closest border "I" live to is Canada. And I can't smoke their cigarettes, plus I think they cost even more over there.
What does the one increase have to do with the other? Sounds like the kids are getting a great education huh?
I wish lovers of big gubmint would deny food stamps to fat pigs. Or just give them cheap, healthy food from a gubmint list that I paid for.
"Cigarettes end up costing society somewhere between $5-7 per pack."
Prove it. Nice little collectivism statement tho'.
""Cigarettes end up costing society somewhere between $5-7 per pack."
Prove it. Nice little collectivism statement tho'."
Well, obviously the statistics vary on this. I'll post one study landing on your side of the argument. It's less than $5 a pack to society, though they still cost society $1.44, or $6.86 to society and family members combined. You think that's acceptable?
A CDC study estimated the cost to society in terms of actual expense and lost productivy at work to be more than $7 per pack.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D02E1DA173CF931A25757C0A9649C8B63
From a Duke study.
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2004/11/costofsmoking_1104.html
Monday, November 22, 2004
Durham, N.C. -- America’s 51 million cigarette smokers already bemoan the high cost of their habit, but what would they do if they knew that the real price, over a lifetime of smoking, amounts to nearly $40 per pack?
In their new book "The Price of Smoking," Duke University health economists calculated this sum by analyzing all the costs of smoking -- personally, to the smoker’s family and to society at large.
Their analysis found that the cost for a 24-year-old smoker over 60 years was $220,000 for a man and $106,000 for a woman, or a total of about $204 billion nationally over 60 years. The figures include expenses for cigarettes and excise taxes, for life and property insurance, medical care for the smoker and for the smoker’s family, and lost earnings due to disability.
Costs borne only by the smoker amounted to $33 of the $40-per-pack total, or $182,860 for a man and $86,236 for a woman over the smoker’s lifetime. Incidental costs such as higher cleaning bills and lower resale values on smoky cars were not included.
The study differs from previous smoking studies in that it comprehensively analyzes a wider range of costs over a smokerfs entire lifetime, drawing on such data as Social Security earnings histories dating back to 1951. Most smoking studies rely on data that provide a snapshot of annual costs, said co-author Frank Sloan, professor of economics and director of the Center for Health, Policy, Law and Management at Duke’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
The "life cycle" method used in this research could prove equally enlightening in the study of other health behaviors, such as obesity and excess alcohol use, Sloan added.
The study calculates costs to the smoker’s family separately from costs to the smoker himself, figures that most economists lump together.
"Given the high rate of divorce and the questionable assumption that spouses condone smoking on the part of their husbands or wives, we believed it made more sense to separate costs to the smoker from costs to his family," Sloan said. Those costs amount to $23,407 over the smoker’s lifetime, or about $5.44 of the $40-per-pack total.
The authors found that smokers’ costs to society are less than generally believed -- about $1.44 of the $40-per-pack total -- when costs to the smoker’s family are not included.
"The reason the number is low is that for private pensions, Social Security, and Medicare -- the biggest factors in calculating costs to society -- smoking actually saves money," Sloan said. "Smokers die at a younger age and don’t draw on the funds they’ve paid into those systems."
Using this figure, some economists might suggest that cigarette excise taxes in many states already are high enough to recover society’s portion of the cost of smoking.
But when the combined costs to society and to other family members are considered ($6.88 per pack), one might conclude instead that excise taxes are far too low, Sloan said.
Given the high costs and adverse effects of smoking on individuals, it is "remarkable," the authors conclude, that funds from the 1998 settlement involving 46 state attorneys’ general and major tobacco manufacturers largely are not being spent on smoking-cessation or related programs. Many states are using the funds to cover budget deficits or, as in North Carolina, on economic development in tobacco communities
Though tobacco-control programs and cigarette tax hikes can help curb the high costs of smoking, the authors concluded, "it will be necessary for persons aged 24 and younger to face the fact that the decision to smoke is a very costly one -- one of the most costly decisions they make."
The study’s co-authors were Duke health policy research associate Jan Ostermann, Gabriel Picone of the University of South Florida College of Business Administration, and Duke health policy professors Christopher Conover and Donald H. Taylor Jr.
The research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.
Thanks for the ping!
Sure, they're all Maine people shopping in NH. Go over to Littleton on the other side of the state and 2/3 to 3/4 of the cars in the Wal*Mart lot are from Vermont. On the southern border, a majority will likely be from Massive2sh!tts.
"The agency estimated the nation's medical costs related to smoking at $3.45 per pack, and said job productivity lost because of premature death from smoking amounted to $3.73 per pack, for a total of $7.18."
Once again, collectivism at it's finest. These are private costs, not born by "society." I chose how to spend my money and my employer measures my productivity and continues with that private contract as long as they deem me productive and of value. In addition, they are now assuming that smokers will work their entire lives, instead of retiring. Where we know that is bogus.
In addition, they said, "hey we aren't sure how much taxes are collected so we just can't offset any of our claim above..." Nonsense, socialists just being collectivists. The tax data is readily available for anyone wishing to take a serious look at the issue. In addition, if there is lost productivity due to early death, then of course there is uncollected SS and Medicare benefits, resulting in a savings to the only part of society that would bear the costs of smoking.
Keep trying to push an agenda, the socialists thank all of the collectivists for the teamwork.
Can you IMAGINE the outrage at the groceries and package stores when they have the customer on a scale, to see if they can accept their food stamps?
LOL
Ohhhhhh, the HUMANITY !!!!
or in this case...THE HUGE MANATEES!
LOL...
Um, it's not brainwashing, SheLion. I work in healthcare!! (or perhaps I'm the brainwasher?) And I am also going through med school at the moment. If there are two things that you could do to absolutely wreck your health, one would be smoking. The other would be to pick up Type II diabetes.
Ok, then how about adding at least three more to your list:
Unprotected sex
Alcoholism
Obesity
Definite killers, correct?
How about meth? I'm sure in your daily walk as a health care worker, especially in Maine where we have TWO meth clinics, you see many cases of the young dying very early because they are addicted to METH.
Common. It's just to easy today to point a finger at people who smoke and choose to use a legal product, isn't it!
I don't know if it's easier to point your finger at people who use a legal product other than they make it a lot easier to identify themself by not hiding it.
But cigarettes are responsible for more premature deaths than all drugs (including alcohol) and traffic fatalities combined. And by a substantial margin. That doesn't mean you ignore the others, but all the same...
Also, you don't need to get me started on obesity... lol. But that would involve Type II diabetes like I mentioned in my previous post as one of those two things not to do to your body.
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