http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7

In terms of benefits though, don’t discount the benefits that people FEEL from smoking. You wouldn’t discount the benefits people feel from the mild buzz they get from a couple of glasses of wine, or the endorphins released during sex… and smoking provides similar benefits, though usually at a lower level, hundreds of times a day for smokers. Which explains why one of the side effects of quitting is so often trouble with depression.

OK… I think that might be it for me for the evening. Long day here! LOL! Good finding someone to have a reasonably disagreeing discussion with though! :>

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

But then this takes us back to the discussion of how much smokers really cost society (which I think includes things like productive years lost, or–in developing countries–the costs of caring for children and widows of those who die young from tobacco related illness, a not insignificant amount).

And this analysis assumes that all other factors are kept equal. Where there is an industry that spends billions of dollars to hook people on a product (tobacco) that provides little, if any, benefits, I am more inclined to use factors to discourage people from consuming tobacco products than I would if people really were just making a free decision (I would suggest that the correlation in the rise of smokers in particular developing countries that have been the specific target of tobacco companies’ plans to increase tobacco consumption indicates that the choice is not entirely “free”).

I also think that the lowest income people deciding not to smoke, and earmarking revenues to benefit the lowest income people, limits the regressivity of a tobacco tax, but I can see where you could be concerned.

In terms of taxation, I understand your reasoning, but yes, we do disagree. For one thing, you note that tobacco consumption in the developed world is much lower than in the poorer countries, and yet I’ve seen articles decrying huge rates of tobacco use in those poor countries because it takes such an enormous chunk out of people’s basic food and needs budgets. Putting that together one could make the argument that impoverishing people through excess taxes is actually good for them since they won’t be able to afford to smoke so much.

I believe people should have the freedom to decide what they want to do that makes them happy in their lives, even if it’s not necessarily good for them or is something I disapprove of. If you look at my bio at http://www.antibrains.com you’ll see that I used to BE an “Anti” of a sort: I was an anti-car fanatic and proposed and pushed for many of the sorts of behavior modification techniques later picked up and used by the Antismokers.

I’m still a bicyclist, but I no longer feel I have the right to push my vision of “the best world” onto other people through such things as tripling gas taxes or making driving more uncomfortable or less convenient. I would no longer advocate laws requiring posters of horrific traffic accident casualties on windshields of cars being sold, or push for laws banning radios in cars on the basis of the music/news distracting the driver from the road while my real motive would simply be to make the driving commute less tolerable. And so forth. I like to say that I “know” the Antismokers because I used to be one… except it wasn’t about smoking.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

Michael–you make a number of great points, and I don’t know that I’ll be able to do justice in replying in the limited time I have immediately available. Suffice it to say, I think we strongly disagree about tobacco taxation in developing countries–and it is your point towards the end that I am most interested in.

My reasoning is as follows: tobacco consumption in developing countries is harmful to society in ways that are more troubling that tobacco consumption in developed countries–particularly because, as you say, rates of tobacco consumption in developed countries are relatively low. The rates of tobacco consumption are just starting to grow in developing countries, with tobacco companies spending lots of money on promotions and such to entice young smokers to become lifelong addicts–that is the way that tobacco companies will continue to remain profitable. Many of the people they are attracting are people who otherwise live on less than $1 a day so that money spent on tobacco products is money that would otherwise be spent on food, health and education.

What study after study has shown is that the variable with the largest effect on reducing tobacco consumption is higher prices, generally effectuated by higher rates of taxation. More so than providing counter-advertising, quit programs, etc., increased prices of tobacco products deters and reduces tobacco consumption. This rate of decrease is even steeper among the poorest.

Although tobacco taxation is regressive in principal, it becomes much less so as the poorest quit smoking in response. It becomes even less so if revenue generated is used to benefit the less well off, for instance, by using the revenue to provide access to clean water, access to medical care, access to education, or even access to tobacco control resources.

The spending by drug companies to promote nicotine products is not really a separate issue from that spent by tobacco companies, particularly since so much of it is spent directly to influence laws and taxes that will promote the NicoGummyPatchyThingies.

In terms of taxing a minority, past taxations of minorities are by no means a justification for continued taxing, particularly when the minority is question tends to be below average in income and when the tax is such an unjustifiably high percentage of basic product price. Smith noted that Rum, Sugar, and Tobacco were products of near universal consumption in his time. Today only about a quarter of the US population smokes – 60 million adults.

You can read a good analysis of taxation vs. costs arguments in my “Taxes, Costs, and the MSA” essay at http://pasan.TheTruthIsALie.com (near the bottom of the red-highlighted articles.) I fully agree that the economic issue should not be confused with the public health issue, but it’s the Antismokers who constantly bring the two up as being related when they push for higher taxes. Your “costs to society” of smoking caused fires has two faults: First of all the economics involved are almost nothing compared to the other economics of taxes and costs – it’s just a good emotive peg to hang an argument on since obviously everyone will agree that deaths in fires are horrible. Secondly, no calculation has been made as to the cost of fires caused by smoking bans: Obviously hidden smoking resulting in hastily and improperly disposed of butts in areas where fire-safety equipment (ashtrays) has been removed may be increasing the number of fires … but, oddly enough, no antismoking organizations seem to have offered grants to study such a problem.

Finally, you are correct about the high costs of tobacco use in developing countries. The antismoking organizations that have pushed for higher taxes upon the smokers in those countries should not only be ashamed of themselves, but perhaps even held criminally liable for what they’ve done in pushing for ever higher taxes that end up harming the children.

Elizabeth, I think it would be proper though, given that we are guests here in the Global Health Law Forum, that we stick to topic to at least some extent. Would you care to defend the “Third Hand Smoke” theory in light of the initial postings by Dr. Kabat and myself?

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

With regards to tobacco taxes being a tax on a minority, throughout modern history, taxes and other financial incentives/disincentives have always been used to modify behavior in society–either by providing tax credits or subsidies for behavior we want to encourage (such as, for example, for home ownership) or through penalties (such as for taking from retirement savings early) [you can take issue with the policy reasons behind either of these examples; I include them only to point out that society uses our tax system to encourage or discourage certain behavior]. Society deems what behaviors it wants to encourage, and what behaviors it wants to discourage, and uses the tax system accordingly. Adam Smith noted as much in 1776 by saying: “Sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.”

Regarding the cost of smokers to the state: Most of the studies I’ve seen that conclude that smoking doesn’t cost society much make their arguments by noting that smokers die before they need expensive end-of-life care. Yes, dying early is “cheaper” for the state than living a long life; but from a public health perspective, that is not the calculation that should be made. Dying early still costs society a lot in terms of the loss of otherwise productive years (not to mention the costs of diseases associated with tobacco consumption). Moreover, many calculations of the cost to society of cigarettes or other tobacco consumption do not take into account expensive externalities such as the cost of homes burned down as a result of inadvertent fires caused by cigarettes.

And the discussion has not touched upon the costs of tobacco consumption to developing countries, which are incredibly high. In developing countries, people with very little money spend a very large percentage of their funds on tobacco; funds that could otherwise be diverted to food, education, or health care. In countries like Indonesia, if the poorest 10% donated 2/3 of the money otherwise spent on tobacco on food, hundreds of thousands of children that otherwise go undernourished would have enough to eat. Those costs need to be included in any calculus about the costs of tobacco consumption–an activity that provides comparably few social benefits.