Putting another spin on that...
Less smokers equals less of a burden on the NHS, so would mean less tax needed to fund it.
Just rough figures i remember from somewhere, which i cannot guarantee the accuracy of, but i know they are a few years old.
£8.8 billion in tax on smokers.
£1.2 billion cost to the NHS.
I think i recall that around £1 billion of that is on helping smokers quit (patches etc). Therefore the direct result of smoking related illness is a cost of around £200m on the NHS.
This means the government make a profit of £7.6 Billion.
Now, If everyone gives up, thats a massive shortfall. We'd have £8.8 billion lost from tax, and £1.2 billion from caring for ex-smokers. We could actually remove the £200m cost of caring for the illnesses caused, as they'd supposedly dissappear. However, more would then use patches and the like from our rather overly charitable buffet like NHS.
I think it's fair to say that the £1.2 billion would more than double, but what is clear is there would be a minimum of a £9.8 billion shortfall.
There's around 12 million smokers in the UK, and 29 million tax payers, 80% of the cost of cigarettes is tax.
Anyway for the ease of maths, the £10 billion (probably more) shortfall would cost each UK tax payer an extra £344.84 per year.
Smokers were paying that, why does everyone else want to? Surely that hurts more than a bit of poxy smoke in the streets?
I'm not trying to start an argument herthab, just enlightening some!
