I wonder whether they take into account the long-term cost of people - who quit or don't smoke because of this legislation - becoming more of a burden on the social systems because of extended life? Things like this always remind me of the 'Smoke Screen' episode from Yes, Prime Minister [1]
I can't see how that could potentially be a net positive for society.
The vast majority of smokers remain productive until they retire but they have lower lifespans. Also take into account that nicotine suppresses appetite and smokers are less likely to be overweight.
From the same report linked in this comment chain, page 53:
> As another example, the Analysis of Costs & Benefits also considers potential gains to productivity. There is sufficient evidence both in Australia and internationally to conclude that smokers take more sick leave than non-smokers. There are also academic reports that estimate the level of excess absenteeism attributable to smoking. Using these sources, and others, the Analysis of Costs & Benefits estimated productivity gains that would be realised where the tobacco plain packaging measure prevents initiation of smoking or increases the number of smokers who quit. The estimated value per working smoker avoided is $337.48 per year and the value of increased productivity per working quitter is estimated at $84.37 per year.
The report doesn't cite those studies, but here's one from Sweden:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598486/
> Smoking was found to increase the annual number of days of absence by 10.7 compared with never smoking. Controlling for risk factors at work, and thereby accounting for some of the selection of smokers into riskier jobs, reduced the effect to 9.7 days, corresponding to 38% of all annual absences due to sickness. Moreover, controlling for health status further reduced the effect of smoking to 7.7 days. The effect of smoking on sick leave was similar for men and women.
and another from Taiwan:
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/14/suppl_1/i33
> Using a conservative estimate of excess absenteeism from work, male smokers took off an average of 4.36 sick days and male non-smokers took off an average of 3.30 sick days. Female smokers took off an average of 4.96 sick days and non-smoking females took off an average of 3.75 sick days.
As a side note, the stark difference between those two countries in excess sick leave is the average annual days of sick leave: 25.2 in Sweden, 3.9 in Taiwan.
Sure. Smokers also probably take more breaks at work when they do show up. But that isn't the same as becoming a burden on society as the OP claimed.
look at this indian governmental press release mandating photos to be posted on tobacco packs
This reminds me of the analysis I’ve seen for marketing campaigns.
In my experience, it is easy to break one of the many assumptions inherent in methods like Diff-in-diff. Because of this I have little trust in these techniques in general.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_in_differences
Anything in the real world has many many factors affecting its consumption. What would it matter if it was trending down specifically? Or are you asking what models and statistical tools they use to make analyses like this when there are a complex set of factors at play?
Depends where you live. Visiting the US I don't remember ever seeing anyone smoking, but in Europe it's huge, especially in centra/southern/eastern Europe, including the Balkans where coffee and cigarettes are the staple of any nutritious breakfast.
I see plenty of teenagers smoking, plus on outdoor terraces and outside of offices, clubs, bars, even the balconies in my building, it's full of smokers.
Europe is a few decades behind the US on giving up smoking.
I think a lot of people, non smokers mostly, don't see all the bonding, networking, flirting, and general socializing that happens when smokers get together for a fag, which probably explains why this unhealthy habit is still very popular today in many countries. I know many people who met their SOs at smoking breaks or found out about new yet unpublished job opportunities from the chit-chat that happens at smoking breaks.
There's something about the smoking break gatherings, from a social aspect, that can't be replicated at other kind of gathering such as water-cooler.
You don't need to be wealthy to smoke a lot, just bad with finances.
That’s probably because the places where people do smoke are less likely to be visited by tourists.
It's going down because of many measures that have been implemented:
- restriction of billboard advertising
- restriction of tobacco ads in film and tv
- warnings on packaging
- photos on packaging
- banning smoking in public buildings
- banning smoking in restaurants
- banning smoking in public transportation
- banning smoking near entrances
- age restrictions on buying cigarettes
- banning of automatic vending machines
etc.
Each of those have a small effect, but in total the effect is large. It's hard to measure the effectiveness of individual measures, but in aggregate it's clear that these measures significantly reduce smoking. Especially if you compare countries where these measures have not been implemented yet with countries where they were implemented sooner.
People don't give up smoking overnight, the 20 year lead the US has over these measures is not something we can expect to catch up... Smoking is going down, slowly, and I think it's because of all these measures.
I smoked for about 10 years between the mid 80s and 90s. When I started, most of the 'cool', 'sophisticated' etc people seemed to smoke. When I stopped, it was mostly a health choice, but partly because it seemed no longer 'cool', everyone I knew had given up or was trying to.
I can't even fathom why anyone would start smoking now, it seems like an affliction of the poor and/or the old rather than anything sophisticated.
All of this is mostly a change in fashion, people having a deeper awareness of the health risks, becoming aware of tobacco industry manipulation, etc. No doubt government messaging aided and supported that change, but it is not the only or even the main cause imho.
Where do you think this change is coming from? When I was a kid, there was a huge billboard right next to my school with a man wearing aviator glasses, an airplane in the background, smoking Memphis cigarettes. That was the coolest guy I've ever seen.
Compare that to 20 years later, there's a photo of a depressed guy on the package and a message "smoking causes infertility".
When I first started at uni, students still smoked in the auditorium. That was cool.
By the time I finished, people who smoked had to go outside and stand in smoking zones like animals. The opposite of cool.
There's a reason why the public perception changed. I don't think the public perception would have changed as drastically without government intervention.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/237908/smoking-rate-hits-new-lo...
Hell, when I was in high school, you could still smoke at 16.
I'd argue the health risks have become way more know, which drove most of the reduction.
I live in Australia, this reminds me of our tobacco plain packaging legislation [1]. A post implementation review was conducted a few years afterward [2]. Some interesting bits from the PIR conclusion:
> Applying the government’s RBM framework, the regulatory burden was estimated as $73.87 million across the entire industry (including manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retailers).
> While it was not possible to complete a full Cost Benefit Analysis for this PIR (due to the limitations on the data available at this time and provided by industry), potential monetised benefits were also analysed including an illustrative example of health benefits. That example estimated that a 0.07 percentage point drop in smoking prevalence would be equivalent to $273 million in monetised health benefits
> Dr Chipty’s modelling also estimated a 0.55 percentage point drop in smoking prevalence in Australia, over 34 months following implementation, attributable to the 2012 packaging changes. This strong result, that is “likely understated”, is expected to grow into the future as the full effects of the 2012 packaging changes are realised over the longer term
So, within 3 years after the introduction of packaging changes, smoking prevalence throughout the population had dropped by at least half a percent (approx 100k people). It cost the tobacco industry less than $100m in one-off transitional costs, and it's estimated to have more than $2b in monetised health benefits over that three year period alone.
It also cost tobacco industry lost revenues & profits, but hey, that's their problem, maybe they can find a different business to invest in.
[1] https://www.health.gov.au/topics/smoking-and-tobacco/tobacco... [2] https://oia.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/posts/2016/02/Tob...