Today I'm happy about......

[William the White]

As for taxation, tobacco is taxed highly because the health costs of it (financial and otherwise) are absolutely massive. Sure other things are harmful, but smoking is a contributor directly and indirectly to a vast array of diseases both directly and indirectly. Unlike alcohol...

hmmm... I may be wrong - but that sounds like a total bag of tit...

here's some statistics on the health and social costs in the UK of alcohol...

NHS - crime - working days....

Alcohol abuse costs Britain at least £20 billion a year, according to a Government report out today.

The study found that 17 million working days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each year - costing employers £6.4 billion.

One in 26 "bed days" in the NHS is taken up by alcohol-related illness, it added, with an annual cost to the taxpayer of £1.7 billion. The cost of clearing up alcohol-related crime is a further £7.3 billion a year.

Drink leads to a further £6 billion in "social costs", the study added. Authors of the long-awaited report - which will form the basis of ministerial attempts to tackle drink-related problems - believe even these figures to be conservative.

The report said there are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence a year. Four out of 10 visits to hospital casualty wards are drink-related, rising to seven out of 10 at weekends between midnight and 5am.

Between 800,000 and 1.3 million school children are affected by parents with drink problems, it added.


just so that we know what figures you are using for smoking - could you post your equivalent stats?

these stats were published today - 13th July 2103 by the government

It's the 13th of July??? Shit... I've lost eleven days of my life...

[Lord Kangana]

Thats alcohol for you.

[BWFC_Insane]

As for taxation, tobacco is taxed highly because the health costs of it (financial and otherwise) are absolutely massive. Sure other things are harmful, but smoking is a contributor directly and indirectly to a vast array of diseases both directly and indirectly. Unlike alcohol...

hmmm... I may be wrong - but that sounds like a total bag of tit...

here's some statistics on the health and social costs in the UK of alcohol...

NHS - crime - working days....

Alcohol abuse costs Britain at least £20 billion a year, according to a Government report out today.

The study found that 17 million working days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each year - costing employers £6.4 billion.

One in 26 "bed days" in the NHS is taken up by alcohol-related illness, it added, with an annual cost to the taxpayer of £1.7 billion. The cost of clearing up alcohol-related crime is a further £7.3 billion a year.

Drink leads to a further £6 billion in "social costs", the study added. Authors of the long-awaited report - which will form the basis of ministerial attempts to tackle drink-related problems - believe even these figures to be conservative.

The report said there are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence a year. Four out of 10 visits to hospital casualty wards are drink-related, rising to seven out of 10 at weekends between midnight and 5am.

Between 800,000 and 1.3 million school children are affected by parents with drink problems, it added.


just so that we know what figures you are using for smoking - could you post your equivalent stats?

these stats were published today - 13th July 2103 by the government

Bish I have emboldened a part of my post that is important. As I understand it treating diseases DIRECTLY caused by smoking (and we're not even getting onto the secondary stuff like heart failure that smoking has played a key part of) costs the NHS over £5BN a year.

The health costs of that both from a national financial position and a more localised public health view are more serious from smoking than drinking. As a general rule.

Sure the total cost of drinking may be massive once social disruption, policing etc is involved though I suspect some of those stats are slightly misleading or at the least hard to interpret. But I was talking about the health implications and cost of.....

[Montreal Wanderer]

Aye, there's one condition it think that smoking helps with. Can't remember what, and I don't have it, but still. I don't know any smoker who doesn't accept the idea that non-smokers shouldn't have to be around smoke, but that isn't the same as deliberately discouraging people, which has been the aim of successive governments. I don't think it's the govt's job. Ensure people are aware of the risks? Sure. Try to provide a duty system that means smokers pay for the extra burden they are likely to put on the NHS (99% of all lung cancer cases are snoking related, acc Ben Goldacre)? Sure, and I think the same about alcohol. After that, it's up to people to choose.

Do you feel the same way about, say, car seatbelts?

Are you from New Hampshire?

[Gary the Enfield]

As for taxation, tobacco is taxed highly because the health costs of it (financial and otherwise) are absolutely massive. Sure other things are harmful, but smoking is a contributor directly and indirectly to a vast array of diseases both directly and indirectly. Unlike alcohol...

hmmm... I may be wrong - but that sounds like a total bag of tit...

here's some statistics on the health and social costs in the UK of alcohol...

NHS - crime - working days....

Alcohol abuse costs Britain at least £20 billion a year, according to a Government report out today.

The study found that 17 million working days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each year - costing employers £6.4 billion.

One in 26 "bed days" in the NHS is taken up by alcohol-related illness, it added, with an annual cost to the taxpayer of £1.7 billion. The cost of clearing up alcohol-related crime is a further £7.3 billion a year.

Drink leads to a further £6 billion in "social costs", the study added. Authors of the long-awaited report - which will form the basis of ministerial attempts to tackle drink-related problems - believe even these figures to be conservative.

The report said there are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence a year. Four out of 10 visits to hospital casualty wards are drink-related, rising to seven out of 10 at weekends between midnight and 5am.

Between 800,000 and 1.3 million school children are affected by parents with drink problems, it added.


just so that we know what figures you are using for smoking - could you post your equivalent stats?

these stats were published today - 13th July 2103 by the government

It's the 13th of July??? Shit... I've lost eleven days of my life...

90 years and eleven days to be precise.

[Prufrock]

Aye, there's one condition it think that smoking helps with. Can't remember what, and I don't have it, but still. I don't know any smoker who doesn't accept the idea that non-smokers shouldn't have to be around smoke, but that isn't the same as deliberately discouraging people, which has been the aim of successive governments. I don't think it's the govt's job. Ensure people are aware of the risks? Sure. Try to provide a duty system that means smokers pay for the extra burden they are likely to put on the NHS (99% of all lung cancer cases are snoking related, acc Ben Goldacre)? Sure, and I think the same about alcohol. After that, it's up to people to choose.

Do you feel the same way about, say, car seatbelts?

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

To go on a long winded thought experiment:

I think there were some adverts recently suggesting that there's a serious risk of killing or injuring others if you aren't wearing a seatbelt and so fly into them in a crash, so my answer is conditional. If there is no evidence to show a statistically significant increase in the risk of injuring others by not wearing a seatbelt, then, in principle, I'm all for people (adults) having the freedom to drive without a seat-belt if they so wish.

There is an issue of cost. Extra deaths might not cost much, but there are injuries which are likely to be increased in severity if you aren't wearing a seat-belt. How do you pay for that? To spread the burden across all road users would be unfair I think, and so you'd have to find a way of targetting those who drove without a seatbelt. Any methods I can think of off-hand would probably cost more than they would save and so you have a problem of cost v utility (true child of UCL, I am! Jerry berry owuld be proud. This whole thing reads like a utalitarian parody)

Given there is no obvious 'gain' to driving without a seatbelt I think the current situation is fine. However, were there to emerge a group of people passionately in favour of their right to drive a vehicle without wearing a seatbelt, and were willing to take the risk and foot the cost, then why not?

I'd think they were idiots, as no doubt some non-smokers think smokers are idiots, but I don't think it's the Govt's job to ban people from being idiots.

[TANGODANCER]

Couple of points which might be worth considering:

Firstly, ( for BWFCi) nowhere did I suggest that people should have to be around smoke, just that smokers should have an alternative, ie places where they can smoke. Equality, not domination by either.

Next: Generalising. The world is an ever-changing place. Fact.

People are not all the same and can't be judged that way. Many things can affect how different illnesses affect different people. Consider this: This generation will be totally different to the past one. Many pensioners alive today have gone through things that this generation will never see. Steam railways, pea-souper fogs, unleaded fuels, coal and all the substitutes that got burned for heat. Industrial smoke from power plants, gasworks, foundries and engineering firms, mill chimneys etc, etc, etc. You can if you wish, add on some fifty years of pubs, work-places and even reataurants before the smoking bans came in. To imagine none of these things affected health, yet just smoking cigarettes did, is ludicrous. Many of the people from that generation are still alive .

On the other side of the coin, re health, hamburgers, hot dogs and fast food on general sale are a product of the last fifty years or so. Rationing of sugar, butter and even sweets only ended around 1950. Prior to that people ate fish, rabbit and chicken rather than steak and beef. They cooked with lard, not cooking oil and mainly ate non supermarket products. Add the fact that manual workers far outnumbered white collar ones and it's pretty obvious that comparisons of then (your grandparents era, in some cases, parents) and now, are more than a little irrelevant.

A bloke near me drives down to the newsagents every day for his paper. It's a couple of hundred yards away if that. No doubt plenty like him will bame smoking for their health problems and all the sixteen stone hamburger kings and queens will do the same. Convenient, isn't it?

Please bear in mind I just gave up, before posting hate mail.

[Bijou Bob]

As someone who works in the NHS on cancer issues, lung cancer in particular, the above posts trigger a number of thoughts.

In this country, we soft soap smoking issues. 'Smoking kills' is on every cigarette packet and advertisement and has been for decades now, yet numbers amongst some demographics are rising or if falling, dropping very slowly. What we don't tell people is just how painful and unpleasant a death they're likely to have if they contract lung cancer and how that traumatiic death could affect their loved ones. I've counselled those left behind and its fair to say that for a significant number, the event has triggered debilitating post traumatic stress. Almost as distressing is the guilt felt by those given a poor prognosis when they see the impact it is having on their families as a result of self inflicted injury.

Conversely, the NHS is now supposedly all about patient choice. It's an oft repeated mantra at the meetings I attend. The NHS however, are all in favour of patient choice when patients choose 'correctly'. When they choose to use drugs, binge drink or smoke however, the DH aren't that keen.

The solution will be a hard one to swallow, but I suspect that in a world where universal 'free at the point of use' healthcare is coming to an end (and trust me, it is coming to an end) then those that choose unwisely will find themselves given pain relief and some palliative care and little else other than the message "It was your choice, the consequences are yours to deal with".

[thebish]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

[bobo the clown]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

You're fckg mad.

[William the White]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

You're fckg mad.

And a criminal!

Outlaw Vicar in Wall of Death scandal!

[Gooner Girl]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

You're fckg mad.

That's extremely stupid, what if you had an accident? Why would you take the risk of leaving your children father-less just to feel 'ace and free'?

[thebish]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

You're fckg mad.

That's extremely stupid, what if you had an accident? Why would you take the risk of leaving your children father-less just to feel 'ace and free'?

see bit in bold.

[bobo the clown]

... and uninsured.

[Gooner Girl]

I think you could distinguish it by saying that there is an element of utility in smoking in that people enjoy it. The same can't be said for driving a car without a seatbelt.

I enjoy driving without a seat-belt. I know it's stupid - but occasionally I do - and it feels ace - and free - and a tiny but daring!! a bit like riding my bike without gloves or in jeans & t-shirt on a sunny day...

You're fckg mad.

That's extremely stupid, what if you had an accident? Why would you take the risk of leaving your children father-less just to feel 'ace and free'?

see bit in bold.

So - don't do it then?! Go find another way to get your thrills! or I'll dob you in to C.

[TANGODANCER]

That's extremely stupid, what if you had an accident? Why would you take the risk of leaving your children father-less just to feel 'ace and free'?

Possibly because you get odd moments in your life when you allow yourself a few minutes of personal pleasure without worrying about consequence. "Smelling the roses" and all that. It happens. Not much point to life in a bubble.

[thebish]

So - don't do it then?! Go find another way to get your thrills! or I'll dob you in to C.

what could i do... hmmm.... ermmmm... drive my twins around in a car with bald tyres??

[BWFC_Insane]

There is a difference as well in that you can drive without a seatbelt everyday and do absolutely no harm to yourself whatsoever.

However smoke a cigarette just once a day and you are actually doing yourself harm without question.

[TANGODANCER]

There is a difference as well in that you can drive without a seatbelt everyday and do absolutely no harm to yourself whatsoever.
However smoke a cigarette just once a day and you are actually doing yourself harm without question.

I'm quite prepared to treat that as the absolute gobbledegookeric paranoiaic twaddle that it is. I spent eight weeks in a wheelchair and on a walking stick from going for a paddle in a boat. How I wish I'd lay on the beach and smoked cigarettes instead.

[thebish]

There is a difference as well in that you can drive without a seatbelt everyday and do absolutely no harm to yourself whatsoever.
However smoke a cigarette just once a day and you are actually doing yourself harm without question.

I'm quite prepared to treat that as the absolute gobbledegookeric paranoiaic twaddle that it is. I spent eight weeks in a wheelchair and on a walking stick from going for a paddle in a boat. How I wish I'd lay on the beach and smoked cigarettes instead.

shush!! you'll set monty off again!! was it a sea-boat??