Posted on 02/01/2003 6:58:57 PM PST by qam1
BMJ 2003;326:242 ( 1 February )
News roundup
Social costs of smoking are triple those of illicit drugs
Christopher Zinn Sydney
The financial impact of tobacco and alcohol far outweigh the impact of illicit drugs, with smoking costing the community almost three times as much as any other category of drug, according to a study on the social costs of drug use in Australia.
The report, produced for the federal government’s national drug strategy, estimates that tobacco accounted for 61.2% of the costs to society of drugs, or $A21bn (£7.6bn; $12.4bn; €11.5bn). For the first time the cost calculations included an estimate of the impact of passive smoking and newly available data to assess the effect on the Australian population of absenteeism, drugs, ambulances, fires, crime, and even litter.
Alcohol accounted for 22% of total costs ($A7.5bn) and illegal drugs for 17% ($A6.0bn). The calculations for the survey period, 1998-9, included both tangible and intangible costs to individuals, companies, and governments. Tangible costs included hospital care, road crashes, loss of productivity and tax revenue, and increased crime and policing. The intangible costs included pain and suffering.
The methods used in this report, the third of its kind, differed so much from the previous reports as to preclude comparisons. Long lists of conditions associated with different types of drug use—such as hypertension (associated with alcohol), ischaemic heart disease (smoking), and low birth weight (cocaine)—were compiled. The authors found it impossible to estimate the costs of the misuse of prescribed pharmaceuticals.
One of the authors, David Collins, a professor in economics at Sydney’s Macquarie University, said the report had, for the first time, measured the cost of passive smoking, assessing it at A$47m. Fires resulting from cigarettes were estimated to cost A$81m.
"A lot of the impact of . . . involuntary smoking is on the unborn child and on children under 14 years. It hits the young very hard because they have no control over their lives," he told the Sydney Morning Herald (21 Jan). "Tobacco is still the greatest killer by far and imposes the greatest costs."
The report said the costs were all net costs and, consistent with previous studies, were estimated conservatively. Lower cost alternatives were selected when there was a choice.
Cannabis, opiates, stimulants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids were listed as illicit drugs.
Alcohol was found to have prevented more deaths than it caused because of the beneficial effects of moderate consumption. In the survey period 4286 people reportedly died because of alcohol but 7029 deaths were avoided.
Drug agencies said that they had been aware that tobacco and alcohol were responsible for more problems than were illicit drugs, but they added that the report would show the general public how legal drugs had much more impact.
Professor Collins said the report showed that the costs of drug use are so high that the benefits from even a small reduction in consumption could be large.
"Antitobacco programmes yield very high rates of return, and the same is true for illicit drugs," he said.
MONEY. The government collects massive amounts of money by taxing tobacco. It will be legal as long as it can be taxed to fill government coffers. The politicians don't care if it kills you...as long as you keep paying taxes and funneling campaign contributions to keep them in office.
The politicians already learned that prohibition doesn't work when they tried it with alcohol. Tax the sales and regulate the usage. You may not drive drunk. Your employer won't tolerate habitual drunkeness on the job. Now, you don't get to smoke in the workplace either. Taxed and regulated. And legal.
Correct. It was the other persons who treated my loss as an insignificant anecdote.
When I read your post about your relatives I said a prayer for the repose of their souls and another to them.
Thank you. That fact was omitted from your posts. I likewise felt a loss when I heard of the passing of SheLion's husband. He served his country well and provided for his wife and kids. I appreciate first hand what happens when a husband and father dies prematurely.
However, anecdotes are not scientific evidence. They are valid information for comparison, don't you agree?
There was a direct cause and effect in the deaths of my family members. That's not an anecdote. It is another hard check mark in the death column for smoking caused congestive heart failure and emphysema. You may try to impugn the integrity of government sponsored research, but I knew both of these people personally. They aren't just some imaginary, faceless references in a report.
The same type of circumstances you describe where someone didn't die should be given the same wieght? Shouldn't it?
Not necesssarily. To make a definitive statement you would need to know how many people smoked over a lifetime and how many of those died from smoking related illness vs "old age". The current "junk science" tallies of death attributed to smoking number about 400,000 annually. I would like to see the companion tally of the number of smokers who died of "old age" to make a valid, weighted evaluation.
I hope that all of you are lucky enough to fall under the "old age" designation.
I can't point you to the study, right now, that will give you the "companion tally" but if memory serves me correctly, only 1/3 of smokers ever have ANY smoking related illnesses. The other 2/3 don't get ANY smoking related illnesses whatsoever.
That is NOT saying the all 1/3 that have a smoking related illness die from the illness. Just that they have an illness related to smoking.
BTW, very classless comment on SheLion and MaineRebel. Having seen other comments from you, I'm hoping that was just a momentary loss of identity.
Not necesssarily. To make a definitive statement you would need to know how many people smoked over a lifetime and how many of those died from smoking related illness vs "old age". The current "junk science" tallies of death attributed to smoking number about 400,000 annually. I would like to see the companion tally of the number of smokers who died of "old age" to make a valid, weighted evaluation.
That 400,000 number from the CDC is supposedly "premature" deaths attributable to smoking. But one must decide just exactly what is the definition of "premature"?????
Eight of the ten oldest human beings were smokers, and strangely enough, eight of the top ten healthiest countries also have the most smokers, according to the CDC's DALE study...but just as interesting is the breakdown of the ages at which The "premature" deaths of smokers occur.
Of those 400,000 smokers who supposedly die prematurely every year, 17% of them are more than 85 years old! Forty-five percent are more than 75, and nearly 60% are more than 70 years old. Tobacco-related deaths occur at an average age of roughly 72. By comparison car accidents, suicide, and homicide kill nearly 97,000 people annually at the average age of 39.
Which average age is the most "premature" 72 or 39???
I don't have the citation at hand at the moment, but I believe the difference in average age of death between smokers and non-smokers is something like 10 months.
Again, my apologies to SheLion. I was out of bounds on that comment.
And therein lies the whole crux of the matter.
That is exactly what makes the entire premise of the 400,000 number to be bogus. It is a computer generated number based upon annual deaths.
The anti-smoker factions consider the death of any smoker to automatically be smoking related. It matters not that the 89 year old passed peacefully in his sleep or the 30 year old killed in a motorcycle accident - if they wre smokers they are included in that 400,000+ number. The actual cause of death makes no difference to them.
I am in no way trying to trivialize the loss of your family members, if anyone is doing that it is the extremists of the anti-smoker movement. I am comfortable in saying that because as I explained they consider the death of anyone who EVER smoked to be "smoking related" whether it was or not. You see they have changed the definition of smoking "related" to be the equivalent of smoking "caused."
When my husband's grandfather died, his second wife (he had outlived his first one) stood over his coffin and declared "cigarettes and whiskey is what killed him" - the man was 97 years old.
It's not that simple. If it were, then why are so many epidimiologists and other researchers still getting grant money to continue research to try to figure it out?
For instance if you have a similar (as many things being equal as possible) group of 100, say bladder cancer patients, and you notice that 60 or 70 of these patient report either currently smoking or past smoking, you have a statistical link. How chemicals in cigaretes directly cause the cancer would be for the researchers. Although, the general eitiologies of cancer(s) are pretty well understood at this time.
Not necessarily.
You have a POSSIBLE statistical link, not a sure thing.
Therein lies the problem it is nearly impossible to to make All or many things equal and why it is not that simple in determining a link between smoking and a given type of disease. There will always be differences between the groups (Called Confounders). Besides cigarette smoking smokers % wise generally live less healthy lives compared to nonsmokers. Smokers as a group are more likely % wise not to be physically active compared to the population as a whole (How many Marathon runners do you know smoke?), Smokers are also more likely not to "Eat well" and a higher percentage of poor people smoke compared to those that are well off. Those things by themselves will lead to a higher % of health problems regardless if the person smokes or not.
An example that jumps right out at me is Stomach Cancer which is relatively rare in the west except among people who abuse Alcohol. People who abuse Alcohol smoke at a higher % rate than the general population. So if you take a group of Stomach Cancer patients you are going to have a higher rate of Alcoholics in the group compared to a control group of non stomach cancer suffers and since you have a higher rate of Alcoholics you are going to have a higher rate of smokers. So if you do a study on smoking and stomach cancer and you use controls from the general population yes you are going to find a statistical link. However it is meaniless because of the confounder of Alcohol abuse.
Unfortunately the anti-smoking Nazis often use these confounder differencences between the control & trial group to get the results they want. I heard of a study (I believe done by Stan "The sham" Glantz) on second hand smoke where they used heart patients from a poor area as the trial group while using people from a well off neighborhood as the control which is total BS (Poor people regardless if the smoke or not have a higher rate of heart problems compared to people who live in well off areas).
group of a 100, say bladder cancer patients, and you notice that 60 or 70 of these patient report either currently smoking or past smoking, you have a statistical link.
Well you are never going to find those kind of numbers in most diseases they stick on smokers. It's more like out of a 100 people with the diseases they might find 28 are smokers where in the population of controls they find 25 of of a 100 and usually that small difference is because of a confounder or just by chance.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.