This interesting article presents some intuitively convincing arguments suggesting that the cost to the Budget of smoking are not as great as sometimes claimed. Given the anount of research done into the harm of smoking, I think it likely that the topic may have been researched in detail by someone. Anyone familiar with research in this subject area?

Clearly the author isn't.

This will be a non issues for the election,Yes Tony does get money from cancer stick manufacturers however he will not say no to more cash to fund his middle class welfare.

Anybody unhappy with the increase in tax on smokes should do themselves a favour and give up. As an exe smoker I can tell you you will benifit in your health and your pocket.

Anyone who has worked in the health industry for too long, like me, would be able to tell you the truth about smoking and the death toll.

I rarely met anyone with primary lung cancer or emphysema who hadn't smoked or lived with a smoker. The only ones I met who hadn't were farmers or others who worked with chemicals they breathed in during their work.

For me, it isn't just that smoking causes death too early for many people, it is rather that they ceased to live a reasonable life long before they died.

Many smokers say 'well you have to die of something', but while they are sucking on oxygen at home, too breathless to go to the shops, most of their non-smoking mates are out still enjoying life.

Yes, there are some smokers that live into their nineties and die of old age, but they are few and far between, and who wants to play Russian roulette with their health?

Trust me...give it up.

acupuncture helped me to stop, my last smoke was 20 Feb 1986 and now I'm 68 and enjoying life as never before, but I wouldn't be writing this is I were still puffing.

addiction made me a slave to a drug, while the govt was happy being a pusher. I'm free now, and welcome the price hike, although it could've been several times higher.

the govt could do a lot more to stop this deadly addiction rather than making the drug more costly, which will result in a rise in the crime wave from a captive audience.

"So when we prevent someone dying of a tobacco related illness, we are not preventing their death at all. We are merely delaying it and swapping it for another type of death."

The person who wrote this is clearly deranged! Is not delaying death by not smoking a benefit? Is dying from a smoking related cancer or heart attack a bonus?

The tobacco industry should be closed down lock, stock and barrel. For too long it has poisoned smokers and destroyed their lungs and caused early deaths.

How much longer will this crime be tolerated?

DavidG,

Please spare us the faux outrage.

The issue in question is not whether cancer causes deaths, or whether raising prices of tobacco stops smoking, nor even whether this is a good or moral policy. The issue is whether Kevin Rudd's justification of reducing health care costs by reducing smoking is valid or nonsense.

In other words the issue is whether people that smoke are a bigger burden to the tax payer than non smokers.

I remember more than a decade ago reading an article about the case of the state of California vs Philip Morris where one of the actions was precisely the cost to the state of smoking. This action was quickly dropped when PM used the states figures to show that total cost of health care etc for smokers was significantly less than that for non smokers for precisely the reasons mentioned in this post.

So while I personally support actions to stop smoking, I agree that Rudd should be called out whenever he lies to the public.

...This tax is unoriginal and is flawed in its obvious omission of fairer alternatives.

...Increasing taxes on Alcohol and all of it's industry parts would be fairer and spread the tax burden over a very broad area of the population.

...Not taking the opportunity to increase the tax on Alcohol demonstrates two points; one, the expediency of Politicians to take the easy path of plundering further the small 16% of the population who are smokers; and two, Politicians are ignoring the critical message of the social catastrophe Alcohol has become across all communities in this country.

...Another opportunity to deal with the issue of Alcohol abuse politically is lost.

..."Gutless" I call this latest decision to tax tobacco further.

Thanks for the comments folks (except the one which accused me of being deranged.

Like many of you I too believe that tobacco is a horrible drug. As an ex-smoker I am well aware of the health impact and the horrendous addiction. I am also in favour of efforts to decrease smoking rates. However, we should be honest about our motives. Smokers are no more a burden on the tax payer than anyone else. To claim otherwise is a lie.
We also need to acknowledge the financial damage done to those who are unable to give up and the distress this causes them and their families.

Here are a couple of references and links for anyone interested though there are many more.

Preventing fatal diseases increases healthcare costs: cause elimination life table approach
http://www.bmj.com/content/316/7124/26

Why prevention can increase health-care spending
http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/09/12/eurpub.ckr139.full

There are also many research articles that claim that reduced smoking means lower health care costs. But these inevitably fail to consider the extra costs caused by a longer life and treatment of chronic ailments of aging.

<<..The BOOZER and LOLLY industry should be closed down
lock, stock and barrel.

For too long it has poisoned DRINKERS AND sweets EATERS
and destroyed their LIVERS and rotted their bloode and caused early deaths.

How much longer will this crime be tolerated>>

as long as they can..name call
other pots as being...blacker than them

ps the cost of treating smoking..RELATED*..disease
is 800 MILLION..not 30 billion..

one day someone going to..*sue ALL*..the liars spinning the sin

smoking related..is only 15%..[of all cancers]
smoking RELATED*..is only a fraction of total hospitalization cost
even less ona ..days..per 'stay;basis

try to figure out..the social*[sic][..cost..of booze
or of diabetes treatment..[half a day..every second day]
gallons of blood

but no
go eat ya sweets/lollies/rumsdoaked tarts
drink ya booze..you got nuthing..to loose
till they..come for you..for YOUR OWN GOOD..

they will come

they..will force you to live in..*the hell..you made them create
tax debtors..that will default their debt..[spending your ill-begotten super]..peed upon the wall.

It's always a joy to read a humbug-busting article such as this.

This article is challenging the tired old 'cost to the taxpayer' argument that gets trotted out whenever politicians want to make another money grab from a sector of the community that has already been thoroughly demonised for being a supposed burden to the taxpayer.

Yes, all the evidence is in about the evils of smoking, but that's not what the author is arguing. Rudd is essentially exploiting people already debilitated by an addiction, more than twice as many of whom are unable to afford the cost increase.

After all those tobacco tax increases foisted on smokers by both sides of politics over the years, Joe Hockey suddenly decides that it is nothing more than a tax grab.

So all the Liberal ones were only done for the sake of public health and never to raise revenue?

At the same time he also claims the plain packaging legislation introduced by Labor is a restriction of trade and they would seek to remove it.

Now that's a lesson on how to hold two different views at the same time.

...And just by-way of support to one under god's protest above, on page six today of Tony Abbotts newspaper, The Australian, supporting evidence of the demographic of smokers as being from the more tortured end of society: That end comprising 85% of drug addicts and alcoholics; Juvenile delinquents 79%; the homeless 77%; prisoners at 74%; people living with psychosis 66%; indigenous Australians 47.7%; sole parents, the subject of a recent attack reducing welfare payments to that sector by $100pw (in some cases), 36.9%; people with mental illness 32.4%; the unemployed 27.6%.

...If you are part of one of these underprivileged groups, then the Labor party is not canvassing your vote quite obviously.

Stop being Rachist!

That this tax grab was not in the original budget, and is not accompanied with measures to help reduce smoking is plain evidence that this was purely to fill labors budget black hole, and Dudd is more interested in smokers' cash than their health.

So much outrage on OLO in regard to the Government's health policy, I wonder how much money cigarette manufacturers contribute to the Coalition?

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15316

<<<..(A) wave of amoralisation has led the cultural right to lament that morality itself is under assault. In fact there seems to be a Law of Conservation of Morality, so that as old behaviours are taken out of the moralised column, new ones are added to it.>>

yeah..i recall prostitution/gambling
poker machines..were criminal;..before
now we we got 24/7 live gambling..on the web
and hookers are many..and the govt pimps[mostly ex lawyers]..misdirecting the real present dangers..

to tax smokers
hound us into early graves

YET NOT BO0ZERS
nor fatties

<<Dozens of things that past generations
treated as practical matters are now ethical battle grounds, including disposable (nappies), IQ tests, poultry farms, Barbie dolls and research on breast cancer.>>

google dumbing down american education
or adverse reactiont PERCRIBED DRUGS..[or death toll from booze
qld reported in 1999..it was 4000plus..

*BUT DUE TO PRESUMED HEALTH BENIFIT..lol..
4000 plus..was reduced to under 2000

<<Food alone has become a minefield, with critics sermonising about the size of sodas, the chemistry of fat, the freedom of chickens, the price of coffee beans, the species of fish and now the distance the food has travelled from farm to plate...

,,Many of these moralisations, like the assault on smoking, may be understood as practical tactics to reduce some recently identified harm. But whether an activity switches our mental switches to the "moral" setting isn't just a matter of how much harm it does...>>

thanks sis

Cost benefit analysis. Capitalism writ large.
Perhaps the author might like to book himself in to hospital for an empathy transplant. Under medicare of course.

I wrote the post below in response to "Morality lost in cloud of smoke" by Jane Rankin-Reid. Applies to "Dying to help" as well. I don't think anyone (bar tobacco companies) wishes to see greater uptake of the smoking habit but anyone already addicted should have every assistance to stop.

Rhys Jones raises interesting points which have some truth, though I suspect oversimplified on one hand and exaggerated on the other. Heart disease sometimes results in sudden death in both smokers & non-smokers. Ditto stroke. Odds are higher for smokers. How much more I don't know. More often than not however both conditions in smokers and non-smokers cause deterioration or disability requiring a great deal of care before death intervenes. High risk of cancer is not restricted to lungs. Mouth and throat ditto. Increased risk has been linked to many other cancers. Majority of people have their cancers diagnosed followed by extensive expensive treatments. Emphysema another example - death by degrees usually over years with progressive debilitation.

My beef is about whether enough of the money the unfortunate tobacco addict pays the Govt is being used to encourage and assist him/her to kick the habit.

"While I support heavy (and heavier still) taxes on a substance which is entirely injurious to human and environmental health, products and programs assisting smokers to quit should be heavily subsidised. As heavily as to cost a tiny fraction of a packet of cigarettes. Cigarettes hopefully will become extremely unattractive to wannabee smokers on basis of price if nothing else.

Ditto alcohol needs to be more expensive, carry warning labels on a par with tobacco and availability in terms of location and time clawed back.

While both 'legal drugs' obviously generate substantial revenues, unless I'm very mistaken, the costs in terms of public health, policing, property damage, sanitation and so on would surely exceed the income, probably not in a shy way. Then add on the personal cost to users, their families and broader community.

Is Govt 'Fair Dinkum" about 'helping smokers'? Think I'm with Jane on this one ..."