Smoking costs the world economy $1 trillion per year, World Health Organization says

[TexasTowelie]

Source: Washington Post

Smoking and its side effects cost the world's economies more than $1 trillion and kill about 6 million people each year - with deaths expected to rise by more than a third by 2030, according to a report from the World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute.

Those losses exceed annual global revenue from tobacco taxes, estimated to be $269 billion in 2013-14, according to the report released Tuesday. Of that, less than $1 billion was invested in tobacco control.

"The economic impact of tobacco on countries, and the general public, is huge, as this new report shows," Oleg Chestnov, WHO's assistant director-general for noncommunicable diseases and mental health, said in a statement. "The tobacco industry produces and markets products that kill millions of people prematurely, rob households of finances that could have been used for food and education, and impose immense health care costs on families, communities and countries."

Most of those who suffer health problems from tobacco use live in developing countries, according to the report. With 80 percent of the world's 1.1 billion smokers living in low- and middle-income countries, tobacco's devastating side effects place a disproportionate burden on the poor, the report said.

Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/ct-smoking-costs-who-20170110-story.html

[RobinA]

1. I Never Know

what these "cost the economy" articles mean. Is the money somehow evaporating? If not, the money is still right there in the economy.

[Warpy]

3. Sick days, health care costs, lost productivity

and the list can go on and on. Smoking is expensive in ways beyond the cost of a pack of butts.

[former9thward]

5. So "cost to the economy" is just a one way street.

Cigarette sales in China are $97 billion and in the U.S. $80 billion. Chinese cigarette companies produce 7-10% of the government's revenue. So all those taxes and all those jobs should not be counted as part of the "economy"? What about the salaries being paid to the cigarette companies workers, the people delivering the cigarettes to market, the people selling cigarettes retail? They are buying goods and services with those salaries which employ millions. And they are paying taxes to the government as well as the people who produce their goods and services. Do they not count in the economy? Or its just the negative that counts --- not the positive. Very strange math....

http://www.tobaccoatlas.org/topic/tobacco-companies/

[LanternWaste]

6. No. Cost to the economy simply implies a negative cost/benefit analysis.

No. Cost to the economy simply implies a negative cost/benefit analysis. The comparison includes the gains and losses precluded by taking a course of action, as the those of the course taken itself. Economic cost differs from accounting cost because it includes opportunity cost

But yeah... math can be strange and even frightening to many people...

[Aristus]

4. I think the point is that all the money spent on things like

respiratory therapy, lung transplants, emergency room visits for heavy smokers who "can't figure out why I can't breathe, Doc!", increased life insurance premiums for habitual smokers, firehouse calls for homes that go up in flames when a person falls asleep while smoking, dry cleaning for nicotine stained clothing, cosmetic repairs of cigarette burns, even donations to charitable organizations like the American Lung Association could all be better spent on more productive endeavors.

Smokers and smoking are a drain on any reasonably diversified economy.

[Javaman]

2. in other news: tRump says, "light'm if you got'm. We need to support the tobacco industry!" nt

[EL34x4]

7. Curious if they factored in money saved

In pensions, social security and future medical costs of smokers who died at younger ages than non-smokers?