Cough Up: Balancing tobacco income and costs in society

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Cough Up: Balancing tobacco income and costs in society

Synopsis

Smoking is the single, largest preventable cause of serious ill health and kills tens of thousands of people in England every year.  It is a popular myth that smoking is a net contributor to the economy – our research finds that every single cigarette smoked costs the country 6.5 pence. In order to balance income and costs, tobacco duty should be progressively increased until the full societal cost of smoking is met through taxation.

Related Staff

Author(s):
Default ThumbRobert Nash

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  • Default ThumbSmoking costs £13.74 billion a year - tobacco duty needs to rise to reflect this, says think tank

    18 March 2010

    Whilst tax on tobacco contributes £10 billion annually to the Treasury coffers, the true costs to society from smoking are far higher, at £13.74 billion, think thank Policy Exchange’s latest report finds. This cost is made up of the cost of treating smokers on the NHS (£2.7 billion) but also the loss in productivity from smoking breaks (£2.9 billion) and increased absenteeism (£2.5 billion); the cost of cleaning up cigarette butts (£342 million); the cost of fires (£507 million), and also the loss in economic output from the deaths of smokers (£4.1 billion) and passive smokers (£713 million).

For sale

If you would like a hard copy of this Research Note priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk