Is the smoking ban really achieving its goals?

Plenty of evidence that smoking does not improve your chances of Olympic glory.
The supposed dangers of secondary smoking make the Y2K scam look well intentioned.
It has had a huge effect on our social environment, no denying that.
But the claims of improving longevity and reducing healthcare costs have not been borne out in the quarter of a century.
 
I didn't want to rerun the debate of 20 years ago. Just observing that prima facie the savings in health costs and reductions in smoking related diseases is not obvious.
But the discussion has reminded me that it wasn't about these supposed wins at all but it was a blatant cultural oppression of a minority.
 
arbitron said:
Yes, I believe it was Martin Luther King-Size who famously wheezed: "I have been to the mountaintop… because it's the only place I'm allowed to smoke."
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If he was a smoker then either he didn't make it to the top and, as evertyone secretly suspected, he's a spoofer.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
But the claims of improving longevity and reducing healthcare costs have not been borne out in the quarter of a century
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According to a recent study by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine:
Compared to people who never smoked, those who smoke currently, aged 35, 45, 55, 65, or 75 years, and who have smoked throughout adulthood until that age, will lose, on average, 9.1, 8.3, 7.3, 5.9, and 4.4 years of life, respectively, if they continue to smoke for the rest of their lives. However, if they quit smoking at each of these ages, they will avoid an average loss of 8.0, 5.6, 3.4, 1.7, and 0.7 years. The chances of gaining at least 1 year of life among those who quit at age 65 and 75 are 23.4% and 14.2%, respectively.
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Duke of Marmalade said:
but it was a blatant cultural oppression of a minority.
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But isn't that just how civil societies work? We have minorities who think it's OK to achieve their goals through violence, or that they should be permitted to drive any any speed they choose, we even have minorities who think sexual violence is OK, society as a large decide the greater good is served by oppressing those minorities.
 
Leo said:
But isn't that just how civil societies work?
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Fair enough, so lets not get all stuffy about Afghanistan (of course it is possible that women are in the majority and so they would be culpable.).
For avoidance of doubt I have no doubt that smoking is injurious to health but I was just questioning (not necessarily denying) the claims made 20 years ago about reducing smoking's effect on ill health and the economic dividend that was to be reaped.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
I have no doubt that smoking is injurious to health but I was just questioning (not necessarily denying) the claims made 20 years ago about reducing smoking's effect on ill health and the economic dividend that was to be reaped.
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Overall healthcare spending in increasing because wages are increasing faster than inflation, technology is improving and getting more expensive and, most costly of all, people are living longer.

If we got rid of screening for cancer and so only detected it when it was at a later stage then we'd certainly save money; treatment would be shorter and far fewer people would recover so there would be fewer old people.

We could also do a cost/benefit analysis on all recipients of a State pension and medical card before medical treatment. We could save billions by just letting a proportion of them die.

Thankfully we don't make decisions using economic criteria alone.
 
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