Smoking is Bad For You (…but maybe not for the rest of us)

smokingBravo! A hard-hitting anti-smoking campaign to persuade us to eschew the weed and to be fitter, happier, more productive people. Excellent - but is it though? Some might feel that a fragile economy like ours cannot afford to pay the price if too many people stop smoking.

Ok, the link between smoking and all sorts of horrible diseases is well established (cf Doll and Peto et al) and we can reasonably expect that most smokers will die about ten years before the end of their allotted span - to say nothing of the victims of passive smoking.

But is that such a bad thing? Of course for the smoker and their family and friends it is a very bad thing, but what about the rest of us? Consider the relatively low cost of the victim's medical treatment. Victims of smoking related diseases don't normally last very long once they've been diagnosed.

dalje