As an old un-reformed smoker, I can say say that the statistics are conclusive. On average, you will live several years longer if you never smoke or give up smoking early.
Here are some other statistics I garnered off the Internet: 1. Only about 15 per cent of B.C. residents smoke – or 690,000. 2. The total federal and provincial tax as of April 1, 2014 will be $6.88 per pack of 20 cigarettes. 3. My wild guess is that the average cigarette smoker smokes 15 cigarettes a day. If accurate, the contribution he/she makes to federal and provincial coffers is $1,883 a year. Multiply that by 690,000 and you get $13 million in tax dollars contributed by B.C. smokers each year.
On the March 19 front page, there is a statement attributed to the Canadian Cancer Society that, “smoking kills about 6,000 British Columbians annually and costs the B.C. economy $2.3 billion a year.”
I did the long division. Each smoking caused death cost our province $383,333 on average. Does that seem like a reasonable figure to health care professionals? How is the cost to the province figured? Does it include the taxes that smokers have paid over many years, which non-smokers have not?
What makes sense to me is smokers die younger than non–smokers, smokers die faster than non-smokers and therefore, they are less costly than non-smokers in both medical care and long-term care.
Smoking is dying out. This is not the bad old days when restaurants, bars and homes were filled with smoke.
The few smokers I know step well away from the non-smokers outside of buildings to not offend them.
We are addicts to a legal drug, but try not to offend. If you are a parent that smokes, you should quit to send a good example to your kids. It is not the occasional smoker on the street that will make this seem attractive. I don’t think Lumby is the only place to have this wrong.
The negative health aspects of smoking are not disputable. I think many of the costs associated with smoking most definitely are.
Doug Sonju
Vernon
