Smoking Displays

[Clip]

How many people though continue to smoke out of choice and not addiction?

I do .. I enjoy smoking.

 

[Darandio]

The general argument from the "Tobacco Police" is that smoking costs the NHS through latter treatment. So, lets get some figures going even if they don't paint a perfect picture given yearly anomalies.

In 2009, it was published that smoking costs the NHS £5bn per year to give the sensationalist headline that it was up to 5 times more than previously stated. However, the previous study to that was based on data in 1991, giving a figure of £1.4bn to £1.7bn hence the headline. To confuse even more, the £5bn figure is from 2005/06, a year in which revenue from tobacco related products was £9.8bn, nearly double.

This is where reporting on the matter seems to influence views, especially from the "non smoker". In response the that report, the study leader gave an all too common but biased verdict on the results.

"There's two different ways of looking at this - one is if nobody smoked we would save £5bn but the alternative view is this is an enormous health problem and should be moved back up the policy agenda."

Conveniently, he has missed out the very important point that they would not actually save £5bn, but lose near enough £5bn given the revenues that year. But it is easy to miss that out to get mentioned.

For a final statistic, and quite a relevant one at that. Despite all of the measures introduced to discourage smoking in recent years, the last reported figures for income from tobacco related products were in the year 2010/11, in which the goverment received £11.1bn, which is record income.

 

[Butts]

I do .. I enjoy smoking.

Please see the clue in my avatar
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The general argument from the "Tobacco Police" is that smoking costs the NHS through latter treatment. So, lets get some figures going even if they don't paint a perfect picture given yearly anomalies.

In 2009, it was published that smoking costs the NHS £5bn per year to give the sensationalist headline that it was up to 5 times more than previously stated. However, the previous study to that was based on data in 1991, giving a figure of £1.4bn to £1.7bn hence the headline. To confuse even more, the £5bn figure is from 2005/06, a year in which revenue from tobacco related products was £9.8bn, nearly double.

This is where reporting on the matter seems to influence views, especially from the "non smoker". In response the that report, the study leader gave an all too common but biased verdict on the results.





Conveniently, he has missed out the very important point that they would not actually save £5bn, but lose near enough £5bn given the revenues that year. But it is easy to miss that out to get mentioned.

For a final statistic, and quite a relevant one at that. Despite all of the measures introduced to discourage smoking in recent years, the last reported figures for income from tobacco related products were in the year 2010/11, in which the goverment received £11.1bn, which is record income.

Unfortunately the other side of the argument is rarely seen particularly if the statistics are inconvenient for the anti-smoking brigade.