Winter Maladies: Natural Approaches
June Russell's Health Facts
Smoking - Miscellaneous
The Tobacco companies are making money from a product that kills and maims:
Courts have held that the no-hire practice of those who smoke is perfectly legal. Health insurance for smokers is almost twice as much, and smokers spend a lot of time standing outside while others are working. ( ASH, Sept./Oct. 1999)
David Davies, the vice president for corporate affairs for Philip Morris , the world’s largest tobacco company, admitted at UN hearings that cigarettes were deadly and addictive, but defended their right to sell and advertise them freely. (“Tobacco giants admit cigarettes are deadly,” Reuters, healthcentral.com - June 2001)
In Virginia - 1995 CDC - Over a million smokers in Virginia - 1,085,700 (Sept. 19, 1998, Daily Progress)
Cost to Nation
In the U.S. - $100 billion a year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in “Nicotine Addiction.” (In Information Plus - The Information Series - Smoking, 1999)
Smoking costs the American public about $130 billion each year, largely paid by nonsmokers in the form of higher taxes, inflated health care costs, etc. Smoking is literally burning a hole in your pocketbook! (ASH, July/Aug. 2000)
The cost of smoking related illness is $60 billion. (Jeff Rollins a.m. 1400 radio, July 14, 1998)
The cost of purchasing a pack of cigarettes a day for 5 years is $3,650, not including inflation or lost accumulative interest. 42% of the men who are below the U.S. poverty level smoke, and 30% of the women who are below the poverty level smoke. The hidden costs of smoking amount to $2 a pack, the annual U.S. cost of health care for smoking related illness is $47 billion, and $47 billion is the annual U.S. cost of lost productivity and forfeited earnings due to smoking related disability. For each pack of cigarettes smoked there is 28 minutes of lost life expectancy. A typical pack-a-day smoker loses 25 years of life expectancy. (“Dying to Quit,” book by Janet Brigham, 1998)
Cost to Individual
According to Educational Services, a smoker can invest his/her cigarette money (one pack a day at 7%, allowing for increases in costs) and be worth almost $2 million at the end of 50 years.
If, instead of buying a pack of cigarettes, a 16 year old smoker would invest the same amount of money and it earned 7% a year, he/she could be worth $360,265 and at the age of 65 - $1,860,958 (almost 2 million dollars!) (SmokeFree Air, Winter 1997-98)
Politics/Government
The government no longer has direct subsidies to tobacco, but they do allow their agricultural extension agents to advise tobacco farmers in the same way as other farmers. In each of the last few years, the amendment has been introduced to require these agents from dealing with tobacco farmers, and it has been defeated by a narrow margin each time. (Hilton Oliver, Director of Va. GASP, Oct. 1999)
Cigarette advertisement comes under commercial speech. It doesn't enjoy First Amendment protection. Commercial speech is not allowed to make false advertisements, such as phony cures for cancer. (Richard Cohen, Aug. 15, 1986, Washington Post)
1994 Federal Trade Commission Report to Congress : Over $4 billion spent in 1994 alone on cigarette advertising and promotion.
The constitution empowers Congress and states that it is to act to protect the health of citizens. (“Passionate Nonsmoker’s Bill of Rights,” Steve Allen and Bill Adler, Jr. (William Morrow and Co.) 1989)
Support tobacco taxes which are documented to discourage tobacco use,
particularly among the youngsters. (“Don't Waste Tobacco Settlement; Raise
Tobacco Tax, Thomas O’Brian, Horizon Institute for Policy Solutions in
Charlottesville. The Daily Progress, June 27, 1999)