The Smoking Ban - 2 years on.

div0 said:
But you are much less likely to get those particular illnesses as a non-smoker.

Are you suggesting that cancer is not expensive to treat?

Your posts are really not making any sense now.
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I'm saying anyone can get cancer and Lung cancer is no more expensive to treat than any other cancer.

If fact it probably is cheaper as the symptoms of lung cancer are not usually picked up until it is too late and no treatment is offered aside from pain relief.
 
My view? The govt are hypocrits. They wont ban the sale of cigarettes because it raises too much money for the rest of the public. If they were really concerned they would ban the sale, and in a few months, a bit of cold turkey, all would be resolved. Won't happen, because the country would be bankrupt!

If they can't do without the money, then they shouldn't be penalising those who pay the money.

It would have been perfectly feasible to separate smokers and non-smokers within a lot of extablishments, however, they decided not to give businesses the choice.

Nanny state at its worse!

I cannot believe, any non-smoker has the cheek to call smokers a burden on the NHS, when the NHS would not be sustainable without smokers. NHS Funding is around £80bn in one year, smokers fund approximately 20-25% of that. If you believe that add a burden to the NHS, ask yourself how the NHS would survive without them?

<----- Ex Smoker who lives with reality!
 
Agree with it in places where food is being served. But it has caused a huge loss in business to pubs and clubs. I know several club and pub owners and all have noted a large and sustained decrease in takings since the ban. Just recently the recession has made it a little harder to judge exactly what is going on, but it is clear it has had a negative effect on business. IMO the government should have made it a choice of the individual establishment rather than an outright ban.

For the record I'm a non-smoker.
 
aproctor said:
I think you mean more likely to need hospital treatment earlier.

It makes no bones when you get ill, if i cost the NHS £100,00 at 50 years old and died because i smoked or i cost the NHS £100,000 at 90 years old and led a clean life and died i'm no extra burden i just ended my own life 40 years early.
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Actually, if you live longer you are more of a burden through increased pensions paid!
 
Jokester said:
Is there actually any evidence to suggest that smokers cost the taxpayer more than the revenues raised by smoking would cover? I'm not convinced they do.
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No evidence at all. However there is lots of evidence to say the amount they pay in tax eclipses the extra cost to NHS.
 
abolish it in the current form and replace it with a ban where people cannot help but go, such as pavements and roads. market driven enviroments such as pubs can be encouraged to ban by customer behaviour, hence should not be subject to unnecessary regulation.
 
Dr Who said:
My view? The govt are hypocrits. They wont ban the sale of cigarettes because it raises too much money for the rest of the public. If they were really concerned they would ban the sale, and in a few months, a bit of cold turkey, all would be resolved. Won't happen, because the country would be bankrupt!
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The revenue is around £10bn a year (2006-07). A large amount but not that much (they gave away £12bn by dropping VAT from 17.5 to 15%).

If tobacco was banned - that same £10bn plus another couple of bn for the actual tobacco would be spent in the economy - several times over, stimulating economic activity and generating tax.
 
Dolph said:
abolish it in the current form and replace it with a ban where people cannot help but go, such as pavements and roads. market driven enviroments such as pubs can be encouraged to ban by customer behaviour, hence should not be subject to unnecessary regulation.
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Agree with this.
 
clv101 said:
that same £10bn plus another couple of bn for the actual tobacco would be spent in the economy - several times over, stimulating economic activity and generating tax.
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Smoking is probably the best way to boost the economy 2/3 of the sale price goes straight to the tax man + VAT.
 
Mentioned this thread to my wife, and she just thru another extra cost for people living longer, that of long term care/nursing homes...

If you live longer, you are way more likely to need, which costs the govt a lot of money!
 
I love been in smoke free places (never been a smoker), but i hate the way they banned the choice for people. How free are we when own own govt bans things :/
 
clv101 said:
The revenue is around £10bn a year (2006-07). A large amount but not that much (they gave away £12bn by dropping VAT from 17.5 to 15%).

If tobacco was banned - that same £10bn plus another couple of bn for the actual tobacco would be spent in the economy - several times over, stimulating economic activity and generating tax.
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The NHS budget was also lower in 2006-7

And you are not allowing for the profits of the tobacco companies through the sale of cigarettes, you are only counting the tobacco taxation itself!

Please ensure you research your numbers properly

;)

Assuming that money would be used to stimulate the economy is an assumption, you have no idea what it would be spent on, and if it would be spent in this country. Additionally, everyone else would have to pay the lost £18bn odd in taxes, and fund all the people unemployed by the loss of the tobacco industry. That money would be balanced out by the additional taxes that needed to be paid by everyone else (that tax burden won't just disappear) and all the extra unemployed people as a result of no tobacco industray.
 
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I originally raised the cost to the NHS along with alcohol in terms of opportunity cost. If we didn't have to treat someone with self-inflicted illness, we could help other people instead - and yes I'm saying those people are more worthy of treatment, that's my view.

As we've gotten into a discussion about financial cost, and justified by taxiation - that argument is flawed, because the health effects of smoking continue even after someone stops purchasing cigarettes. They also affect other people through passive smoking, people who didn't even purchase a cigarette in the first place - I'm sure it's taken into consideration when working out the amount of tax, but it's also the reason behind the smoking ban.

It simply isn't acceptable any more, to say that the cost of smoking is financially justified - people are starting to see beyond that. We should do what's right - look after each other.
 
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Dr Who said:
The NHS budget was also lower in 2006-7

And you are not allowing for the profits of the tobacco companies through the sale of cigarettes, you are only counting the tobacco taxation itself!

Please ensure you research your numbers properly

;)
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Who's talking about NHS budget, a few years ago or today? Not me...

Given that taxation on the product is such a large proportion of the sale price, the corporate profit and subsequent tax is going to be small - an order of magnitude smaller so can be ignored for this example.
 
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