Do smokers and drinkers pay for the problems they cause?

.

Follow   bakadesuyo on Twitter

We estimate the lifetime, discounted costs that smokers and drinkers impose on others through collectively financed health insurance, pensions, disability insurance, group life insurance, fires, motor-vehicle accidents, and the criminal justice system. Although nonsmokers subsidize smokers’ medical care and group life insurance, smokers subsidize nonsmokers’ pensions and nursing home payments. On balance, smokers probably pay their way at the current level of excise taxes on cigarettes; but one may, nonetheless, wish to raise those taxes to reduce the number of adolescent smokers. In contrast, drinkers do not pay their way: current excise taxes on alcohol cover only about half the costs imposed on others.

Source: “The Taxes of Sin, Do Smokers and Drinkers Pay Their Way?” from JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.

Related posts:

Does drinking lead to sex?

How much alcohol would you guess it takes for you to vomit? To blackout?

Did all that drinking you did in college really hurt your grades?

Share

Subscribe to the newsletter