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

Bravo! 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. If they're really considerate they pop off at a moment's notice, dispatched by a convenient coronary or cerebral thrombosis (wonderfully efficient!).

Compare this with the very significant cost to the community of caring for a stubbornly long-lived but aging, frail and for the most part economically unproductive population. If you've got lots of relatively fit older people doing nothing, someone must pay for their care. Without tobacco tax revenues who will pay, especially if there are fewer younger people having smaller families? If people stop smoking en-masse, how does the Government replace the taxes they've lost? More tax to be paid by us clean-living, sensible and healthy people perhaps? (25% PDV anyone?)

Alternatively, they may consider a massive hike in tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products. But as other countries have discovered, when more people start surviving into unproductive old age, it's unlikely that the Government will be able to meet the enormous costs of increased pensions and of older people's health care, housing and so on from what are effectively shrinking tobacco tax revenues levied on fewer and fewer smokers (a version of the law of diminishing returns - apparently).

So the question seems to be, can Serbians afford actively to campaign against smoking. Of course we should if our priority is individual's health, wealth and a long and active life. The (probably rather too simplistic) economic argument, however, is not nearly so clear cut so if you sense that the Government's not totally committed to eradicating the evil weed from our lives, it may be that in their opinion, the Country simply can't afford it.

I bet you'll never hear a politician say so