It is often superficially popular for governments to ban things that majorities in opinion polling dislike. Especially where there is a moral panic about the activity.
My parents were heavy smokers and it killed both of them (father with lung cancer at 63, mother with emphysema at 76) and so I would never have been tempted to take it up myself. I guess it was still fashionable for its own sake when I was young in the '80s (being rebellious and grown up, I assume).
Despite my personal antipathy, I think that the current rules banning indoor smoking in public places are a good balance. The many people I know of the younger generation who smoke are happy to go outside -- indeed, many do not smoke indoors, even at home. It is pleasant, as a non-smoker, that I can now barely remember how cigarette smoke used to permeate, to some extent, every pub and indoor venue that I visited as a young man.
I do not approve of banning habits that I happen to disagree with, because I am unsure when my own favourite vices (drinking alcohol, eating meat, reading science fiction novels) might be deemed unacceptable and in need of official discouragement. Plus, I strongly believe in individual free will, and that everyone should be allowed to go to hell in their own way.
On the economic issue, a few years ago the Institute of Economic Affairs did a comparison of the lifetime healthcare costs of smokers and non-smokers. Surprisingly, they came out equal. The reason is that, once into their 40s and upwards, when the population start to have health problems, then smokers certainly do require more healthcare in a given year that non-smokers -- but this is balanced by the fact that smokers die several years earlier. So an average smoker consumes no more healthcare expenditure in a lifetime than a non-smoker. It just happens that, for the smoker, that expenditure is compressed into fewer years.
That means that smoking is a massive economic benefit to the government. Most smokers (with the exception of my father) will survive to state pension age, earning and paying taxes through their working life, but then dying around ten years younger than non-smokers, saving a big chunk of state pension payments. Meanwhile, the taxes on tobacco are such that a packet of cigarettes now costs around £15, of which two thirds is excise duty and VAT. So anyone smoking a pack per day is paying £3,600 a year in extra tax. Over decades of smoking, one person might pay £100k to £200k in tobacco taxes, while forgoing state pension payments of £100k by dying early. Therefore an average smoker might represent an extra £250k of revenue to the government over their lifetime, when compared with a non-smoker -- while not consuming any more healthcare expenditure.
I am all for people giving up smoking, but if everyone did so, then it would not do anything to ease demand for healthcare, and the government would need to find more things to tax in order to replace the lost revenue from tobacco taxes.
A lot of people with Schizophrenia are heavy smokers. Far more so than the average person. It may be that they benefit from the positive effects of the nicotine in cigarettes. Vaping would be a less harmful option, it's a shame that there's so much ridiculous anti vaping misinformation out there. It's also ridiculous that vaping is banned inside so many pubs. I know cloud chasers, people who like to make huge clouds when vaping, can be a problem as it's quite antisocial in a confined space but they could ban that instead.
My parents were heavy smokers and it killed both of them (father with lung cancer at 63, mother with emphysema at 76) and so I would never have been tempted to take it up myself. I guess it was still fashionable for its own sake when I was young in the '80s (being rebellious and grown up, I assume).
Despite my personal antipathy, I think that the current rules banning indoor smoking in public places are a good balance. The many people I know of the younger generation who smoke are happy to go outside -- indeed, many do not smoke indoors, even at home. It is pleasant, as a non-smoker, that I can now barely remember how cigarette smoke used to permeate, to some extent, every pub and indoor venue that I visited as a young man.
I do not approve of banning habits that I happen to disagree with, because I am unsure when my own favourite vices (drinking alcohol, eating meat, reading science fiction novels) might be deemed unacceptable and in need of official discouragement. Plus, I strongly believe in individual free will, and that everyone should be allowed to go to hell in their own way.
On the economic issue, a few years ago the Institute of Economic Affairs did a comparison of the lifetime healthcare costs of smokers and non-smokers. Surprisingly, they came out equal. The reason is that, once into their 40s and upwards, when the population start to have health problems, then smokers certainly do require more healthcare in a given year that non-smokers -- but this is balanced by the fact that smokers die several years earlier. So an average smoker consumes no more healthcare expenditure in a lifetime than a non-smoker. It just happens that, for the smoker, that expenditure is compressed into fewer years.
That means that smoking is a massive economic benefit to the government. Most smokers (with the exception of my father) will survive to state pension age, earning and paying taxes through their working life, but then dying around ten years younger than non-smokers, saving a big chunk of state pension payments. Meanwhile, the taxes on tobacco are such that a packet of cigarettes now costs around £15, of which two thirds is excise duty and VAT. So anyone smoking a pack per day is paying £3,600 a year in extra tax. Over decades of smoking, one person might pay £100k to £200k in tobacco taxes, while forgoing state pension payments of £100k by dying early. Therefore an average smoker might represent an extra £250k of revenue to the government over their lifetime, when compared with a non-smoker -- while not consuming any more healthcare expenditure.
I am all for people giving up smoking, but if everyone did so, then it would not do anything to ease demand for healthcare, and the government would need to find more things to tax in order to replace the lost revenue from tobacco taxes.
A lot of people with Schizophrenia are heavy smokers. Far more so than the average person. It may be that they benefit from the positive effects of the nicotine in cigarettes. Vaping would be a less harmful option, it's a shame that there's so much ridiculous anti vaping misinformation out there. It's also ridiculous that vaping is banned inside so many pubs. I know cloud chasers, people who like to make huge clouds when vaping, can be a problem as it's quite antisocial in a confined space but they could ban that instead.