Clearing The Air

Thursday, February 07, 2008

New study logically proves non-smoker's and those who live longer are actually a greater cost burden to society and our healthcare system

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22995659/

Excerpts:

LONDON - Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception...

“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”

This is really just common sense if you think about it, but for years Nicoderm-funded smoking ban activists have fooled lawmakers into believing that smokers cost society more than they pay in tobacco taxes......clearly a false statement.

Lies, exaggerations, and false statements are the only arguments that smoking ban proponents have. Like the statement that secondhand smoke is a workplace health hazard even though Johns Hopkins, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/11/johns-hopkins-air-quality-testing-of.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2006/02/air-quality-testing-and-secondhand.html

Additionally, there is a more urgent reason to repeal such anti-business legislation; here in the Twin Cities, smoking bans have closed down 155+ bars and restaurants eliminating thousands of jobs. As a frame of reference, in 2004 the last year without a ban, only 14 closed:

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/01/100-bars-and-restaurants-put-out-of.html

Around the country smoking bans have eliminated 1,000+ establishments:

http://www.smokersclub.com/banloss3.htm

Can anyone doubt that smoking bans are fueled by inaccurate and exaggerated data, and more importantly have contributed to the economic downturn we now experience.

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2008/01/economist-at-federal-reserve-declares.html

Update: 6/14/2012 CBO Report "Reducing Smoking Would Raise Medicare, Social Security Spending"