Last year, New Zealand introduced a steadily rising smoking age to stop those aged 14 and under from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes in the world-first legislation to outlaw smoking for the next generation.
National’s unaffordable tax cuts to be funded by… (checks notes) …giving more people lung cancer.
While personally against the loss of the ban, this reminds me of when I once heard that, from a purely economic point of view with no regards for human life, tobacco and other unhealthy products are a net positive for the economy.
The reasoning is that people who smoke will die younger, usually after their “productive lifetime” has concluded (where they consume more than they produce), thus being a burden to the state less time.
This is the same way of thinking as people who throw trash into the streets, saying they’re benefiting the local economy because it has to employ more sanitisation personnel. Which is stupid.
The reasoning is that people who smoke will die younger, usually after their “productive lifetime” has concluded (where they consume more than they produce), thus being a burden to the state less time.
My grandfather would have seriously skewed those statistics. He lived to a ripe old age of 90 drinking whiskey and smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes (unfiltered) every single day for decades. On more than one occasion doctors warned him the next cigarette could kill him. He proved them wrong for a very long time.
It is very unlikely that he would have skewed the statistics, the immense weight of the people killed early by smoking would overwhelm the very small number of outliers.
The number of years lost by individuals is determined by a huge number of factors, but smoking has been shown to really drag down the number of years that you are likely to achieve.
While personally against the loss of the ban, this reminds me of when I once heard that, from a purely economic point of view with no regards for human life, tobacco and other unhealthy products are a net positive for the economy.
The reasoning is that people who smoke will die younger, usually after their “productive lifetime” has concluded (where they consume more than they produce), thus being a burden to the state less time.
This is the same way of thinking as people who throw trash into the streets, saying they’re benefiting the local economy because it has to employ more sanitisation personnel. Which is stupid.
But do they actually employ more sanitation workers?..
No idea, but my bet is either they don’t, or they do but could fill more important positions.
My grandfather would have seriously skewed those statistics. He lived to a ripe old age of 90 drinking whiskey and smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes (unfiltered) every single day for decades. On more than one occasion doctors warned him the next cigarette could kill him. He proved them wrong for a very long time.
It is very unlikely that he would have skewed the statistics, the immense weight of the people killed early by smoking would overwhelm the very small number of outliers.
The number of years lost by individuals is determined by a huge number of factors, but smoking has been shown to really drag down the number of years that you are likely to achieve.