The Cost of Cigarettes on Society
It took a few decades to figure it out, but tobacco and cigarette use has been proven to have a significantly negative impact on society. Both in the increase in disease and death, but also monetarily on families and businesses from loss of work and hospitalization. This article highlights many of the facts published by the CDC on the negative impacts of cigarette and tobacco use on the United States and the rest of the world.
Impact of Tobacco and Cigarette Use on Disease
Tobacco use has been proven to increase rates of cancer, lung disease, and heart disease. The lung diseases that it has been tied to are: bronchitis, chronic airway obstruction, and emphysema. Smoking cigarettes has also been proven to be the cause of citizens having to live their lives with a disability for an extra two years before death. World-wide, cigarette and tobacco use have been the primary cause in over 5 million deaths per year and increasing. Estimates show that this number will reach 8 million by the year 2030. On average, a smoker of tobacco cigarettes will die almost 14 years prior to a nonsmoker. Specifically, within the United States, smoking causes approximately 443,000 deaths a year with 49,000 deaths being the result of secondhand smoke exposure.
What is the Monetary Cost of Tobacco on Society?
Every year in the United States, smoking cigarettes costs more than $193 billion. This includes $97 billion in lost work productivity and $96 billion in health care costs. Of these costs, approximately $10 billion is attributed to health care bills resulting from second hand smoke. At the same time, the tobacco industry spent $13 billion in 2005 on advertising and a total of $36 million per day in this same timeframe.
How Many People Smoke in the United States?
Some facts on who the smokers are in the United States:
- 19.8 % of Adult U.S. residents smoke (43.4 million people)
- 20.0% of High School students smoke even though it has been illegal for teenagers under the age of 18 to purchase cigarettes for a number of years.
- Approximately 1,000 teenagers start smoking every day
- About 1,800 adults start smoking every day
- Over 1/3 of American Indian and Alaskan Native adults smoke
- 1/5 of While and African American Adults smoke
- 13.3 % of Hispanic adults smoke
- 9.6 % of API adults smoke
Approximately 40% of adult smokers in the United States try to stop smoking each year. If you make the decision to quit, there are a number of stop smoking methods and stop smoking aids that you can use to help you kick the habit.
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