The Cost of Stopping Smoking to Society

by Nicholas Strattberg

Worldwide stopping smoking efforts by governments and non-profits over the last two decades have been intensifying. These efforts have even included smoking laws and legislation banning smoking in public places. With all the related stop smoking side effects, benefits and symptoms millions of people have been attempting to quit every year.

Apart from the well known dangers of smoking to the smoker and second hand smoking that affects by-standers, so to speak, one of the key reasons to promote smoking cessation has been the economic cost of smoking to society. In the UK, for instance, the British National Health Services (NHS) spends up to 1.2 billion Pounds yearly on efforts to bring smokers to stop smoking.

This pattern repeats itself in any developed country even in the United States.

This undoubtedly drains and strains the public purse to an extent hardly acceptable to the public. Perhaps at face value its unbecoming of an article published on a quit smoking website; there is something yet interesting about what researchers have unearthed about the cost of stopping smoking.

Many people today are learning how to stop smoking. Researchers have discovered that in the long run non-smokers are more expensive to maintain health care wise than smokers. This is not entirely good news nor does it encourage people to smoke.

The reason why smokers who quit are less expensive to maintain is that on a comparative basis they live less longer than non-smokers. Put the other way, non-smokers live longer than smokers. In America, for example, 78% of non-smokers who are male will still be living at the age of 70 compared to 57% of smokers. At the age of 80 the figures are 50% non-smokers. There is a sharp decline to 21% amongst smokers.

Even though stopping smoking is expensive in the short run through quit smoking campaigns, quit smoking programs, stop smoking products and other stop smoking related expenses; non-smokers impose a greater burden on health care resources when they get older than smokers who have a comparatively shorter life span.

Put together there is a greater burden on the health care system from non-smokers as compared to smokers. Smokers live less to demand continued health care into old age. This will in turn result in lesser life time cost of taking care of smokers than non-smokers.

Stopping smoking has also its direct impact on the economy of any given country. In China for example, 8% of government revenue comes from tobacco related taxes. As more people quit smoking less and less benefit is economically realized.

Those employed by the tobacco sector also stand to lose their jobs as less people smoke. The tobacco industry is a very huge employer. Its contracts runs as deep as the growing of the crop itself in developing countries such as India and Malawi. Less demand for tobacco will affect farmers in these economies.

All in all the global cost of smoking health wise is way greater than any loss involved that can be imagined.

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