to genuinely not understand why smoking is vilified

[Redpipe]

and yet drinking, overeating and other addictions that cost the NHS huge sums of money are not?

AIBU to genuinely not understand why it is just smokers in this country that are socially unaccepted?

It's different because it isn't an addictive substance, therefore should be easier to cut down and no great hardship to simply stop over eating?

That isn't the reason I had in mind.

friday so which is costing more drinking or smoking?

so which is costing more drinking or smoking?

Don't know, don't care. The point is that, on the figures you yourself posted, the treasury is £7.1bn a year up on smoking, even before you consider the shortened life expectancies and the effect those have on pension costs. Smoking is good for the economy. More would be better. The deaths it causes are mostly of older, less well educated, less skilled workers who have mostly already retired, the to value to the economy of the lost years is zero.

Look, I think people dying young is bad, and the only reason I don't want yet more prohibitive controls on tobacco is because, in general, prohibition doesn't work (look at how fantastically successful it's been keeping cocaine and heroin illegal, for example). But of all the reasons to want to continue to reduce the number of people who smoke, cost simply isn't one: the country makes a massive profit out of the early deaths.

friday is correct in that statistically, the smokers who pour extra tax into public funds (ta very much!) are more likely to be less well educated and skilled and to die younger thus costing less in pensions and old age care. That's not making a value judgement, it's simply statistically true; smoking has dropped dramatically particularly among the better educated and more highly skilled.

Even so, it's not much of an argument for smoking, is it? That it bungs some extra money in the pot and bumps off a sector of the population...

I am clearly an unusual smoker in that I'm well educated just wilfully stupid but I can imagine those statistics are fairly accurate with 25's and under. Not so much older age groups.

Even so, it's not much of an argument for smoking, is it? That it bungs some extra money in the pot and bumps off a sector of the population...

Absolutely: it's an incredibly bad argument. But unfortunately, it's both the economic reality and a necessary consequence of the argument too many anti-smoking lobbyists make.

The argument runs:

1. IF smoking costs the economy money THEN it should be discouraged.
2. Smoking DOES cost the economy money

1+2=3: Smoking SHOULD be discouraged.

Unfortunately, point 2 is uproariously wrong. Hence by their own argument, we should be encouraging smoking.

No-one seriously believes this. Lives cut short are a bad thing, lives cut short with serious morbidity for a long time prior to death doubly so. But that's not because it's a cost thing, that's because longer, happier lives are generally a good thing irrespective of cost.

Two things I would just like to point out are

1. Compulsive overeating can be an addiction and is treated as such by most expert professionals who deal with its results on a daily basis. Because of this it is actually the most difficult addiction to kick because you can't go cold turkey from food like you can with all other addictive substances.

2. People who drink, especially those who drink to excess also stink! I would rather stand next to a smoker in a queue than someone who had had several drinks the night before because you may not realise it but the reek pours out of every pore in your body and it is not nice.

Not so much older age groups.

Nah. Smoking is inversely correlated with both income and education in all age groups. Better educated and more affluent people (and those from such backgrounds) are less likely to start and more likely to stop if they do start.

I think to be fair most people who are anti smoking are more concerned with the fact that its really, really bad for you. Just as eating crap every day or drinking to excess is bad for you. Most of us go to great lengths to try to instil good habits in our children regarding these things, and it just seems to go against the grain to smoke. Particularly for parents because statistically if you're a smoker, your kids are more likely to be too. And don't even get me started on the adults who think they're having a cheeky smoke without their kids knowing... I've known a couple of parents who think that...

The financial argument is pretty tricky to unravel because so many facts and figures are flung about, but in all honesty I don't think the average person is too bothered about that, it's more the fact that smokers smell rank

...because my best friends husband at the grand old age of 35 is currently battling lung cancer brought on from passive smoking! He has never smoked in his life!

I hate to sound callous, and I feels sorry for your friend, but this is what's known as 'Roy Castle Syndrome'.

There is no way of proving that second-hand smoke caused his cancer, it's very unlikely that it did, and non-smokers get lung cancer too.

friday no you don't care and you have no idea of the figures - look carefully I put in the link VAT - the cost of smoking is much more than the cost to just the NHS - it is nearly 14 billion, when you take into account lost days at work, early retirement, loss in productivity from smoking breaks passive smoking, house fires, even the cost of giving up smoking costs money etc etc.

I gave up two weeks ago and never want to smoke again.

I started when I was doing my PhD twenty five years ago.

Make if that what you will ...

Mind you, it's undeniably bad for you. My lungs are appalling.

Yea, smokers are the new pariahs.

Never mind all those disgusting smoke-belching cars that do far more damage as you walk down the road... never mind all those wars fought over the oil

Some people have it all the wrong way round!

Ugh!

Non-smokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with other non-smokers.

and this is not selfish? Really?
If I choose to eat ridiculous amounts or even drink too much it's not going to have an affect on those around me. Plus what about asthma sufferers, it annoys me that smokers have this 'its my choice' attitude but what about other people's choice not to inhale their smoke?
That is why it's looked down on.

I would personally say cars cause more deaths and illnesses through pollution than any smoker does nowadays. Also that alcohol probably wrecks far more lives than smoking ever will.

I don't know the figures for sure but I wouldn't mind betting that smoking causes more serious illness and death than exhaust pollution and alcohol combined.

Davsmum really sorry to hear about your experiences and loss, I can completely appreciate why someone who has been through that would feel that alcohol was very much worse than smoking.

Seperate from our personal experiences, one in every 2 smokers die from smoking related causes...alcohol addiction and death is just as terrible, but less common.

This report is pretty depressing..

Deaths caused by smoking 2011 79,100
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the UK. About half of all lifelong
smokers will die prematurely, losing on average about 10 years of life.10 Smoking kills more
people each year than the following preventable causes of death combined: [figures for England
except HIV which is for UK and traffic accidents for Great Britain]
• obesity (34,100)
• alcohol (6,669)
• road traffic accidents (1,850)
• illegal drugs (1,605)
• HIV infection (504)

its from ASH www.ash.org.uk/

so the fact that it kills double the people obesity does, and over ten times the people that alcohol does, doesn't really help with the public image.

If I choose to eat ridiculous amounts or even drink too much it's not going to have an affect on those around me.

Yeah, because car accidents, fights in the street and domestic violence are not in any way correlated with excessive drinking. FFS.

I can trivially easily avoid smoking, at any level that "the occasional whiff in the street". And although it's a nasty smell, the actual health risk associated with that is essentially zero (there are a lot of reasons as to why the quoted increase in the risk lung cancer caused by cohabiting with a smoker should be treated with caution, but even at face value, it means that ten seconds' exposure in the street is risk-free).

It's a lot harder to avoid the risk of drink drivers killing me, whether I'm a pedestrian, a cyclist or driving myself. It's a lot harder to avoid the risk of being assaulted by someone who's drunk. Both of those can have instant, life changing effects from a single event, which walking past someone who's smoking simply doesn't.

It's a lot harder to avoid the risk of drink drivers killing me, whether I'm a pedestrian, a cyclist or driving myself. It's a lot harder to avoid the risk of being assaulted by someone who's drunk. Both of those can have instant, life changing effects from a single event, which walking past someone who's smoking simply doesn't.

Both of these scenarios are extremely rare whereas having your life devastated by the loss of a friend or family member through smoking related illness is ridiculously common.

Both of these scenarios are extremely rare whereas having your life devastated by the loss of a friend or family member through smoking related illness is ridiculously common.

People who are killed or injured by drunk drivers did little or nothing to bring on their own fate.

People who smoke themselves to death have only themselves to blame.

As a mother to a cystic fibrosis patient. I hate smoking with a passion.

My son has no choice about his lungs degenerating and he has no choice but to fight for each breath so it disgusts me that people with perfectly health lungs and a choice still choose to destroy them each time they light up.

What people do themselves on their own is their business but when it affects others who have not agreed to the secondary effects then it should not be allowed

It isn't allowed - that's why there are bans everywhere!

*People who are killed or injured by drunk drivers did little or nothing to bring on their own fate.

People who smoke themselves to death have only themselves to blame.*

Their friends and family suffer just as much.