3541

Read the posts more thoroughly. The “Cost per pack” measure is assuming a pack-a-day habit for someone at age 24 that will persist for the rest of their life. It’s not meant to be an aggregate “cost per pack” across society.

3542

I just re-read both posts and I must be blind because I’m not seeing this qualifier. Where is it?

I did notice that I was wrong about the gender inequality point because he was specifically talking about social security costs, not total social costs. My bad.

3543

He actually spreads the methodology out between two posts it seems. The 24 yo thing is in the first post:

“This was done by taking the present value of the life cycle stream of private, external, and quasi-external costs for a 24 year old smoker…”

It looks like I inferred the pack-a-day thing from the second post:

“Just to give an example, detailed sub-calculations in our book (see box 11.1 on p.248) show that an average smoker smoking 400 packs per year gives up around 800 hours of future life expectancy by doing so”

So let me back up and say it’s implied that he’s talking about a typical pack-a-day smoker. Obviously the cost-per-pack for someone who smokes 5 cigarettes a year is significantly lower, but that’s also a less interesting case.

He’s promised a methodology post, hopefully later this week. In the meantime, here is the third post, which examines the quasi-public costs of smoking (costs born by the family of the smoker).

3544

“Just to give an example, detailed sub-calculations in our book (see box 11.1 on p.248) show that an average smoker smoking 400 packs per year gives up around 800 hours of future life expectancy by doing so”

So if you smoke over a pack a day, you only lose 2 years?

That doesn’t really sound that bad. I would have thought it much worse.

3545

I’m not sure if that’s a typo or not a full quote or what - 800 hours is about a month! I suspect it’s 800 hours per year of having that habit; I’m hoping they’ll clarify for me.

3546

Wait. 800 hours is 33.3 days. 400 packs a year for just over a month less future life expectancy? Is that really right?

Edit: d’oh!

3547

lol, you’re right… I thought it was days. That’s hilarious if it’s actually hours, and it’s correct. Even at days, it’s still a pretty small amount of time. If it’s hours and it only shortens your life by a month, then what the hell… Smoke up, Johnny!

3548

My guess is that it’s 800 hours per year of the habit. So if you smoke say from ages 10-20, you end up losing almost a year of life expectancy.

That ends up putting the lifetime cost in the neighborhood of a half decade or so, which feels about right. Of course I’m totally shooting from the hip here!

3549

It’s also just talking about life expectancy with no mention of life quality. A pack a day might only shave 2 years off the end, but it might also make a number of years before the end less than they might have been.

3550

Don Taylor clarified - the 800 hours is per year. One year of smoking 400 packs costs 800 hours of future life expectancy.

So if you smoke for say 50 years (from age 24-74) you end up costing yourself 4.5 years of future life expectancy.

3551

But those last 4.5 years would probably be pretty shitty anyhow. :P

3552

Well, especially since you’ve been smoking a lot, yeah.

3553

So I guess sitting down and smoking really kills you quick!

“CBS 5) – Smoking cigarettes is the cause of so much preventable, deadly disease. But now new research shows sitting for long stretches of time may be just as dangerous.”

3554

That pretty much fucks truck drivers and stay-at-home computer programmers.

3555

“Just to give an example, detailed sub-calculations in our book (see box 11.1 on p.248) show that an average smoker smoking 400 packs per year gives up around 800 hours of future life expectancy by doing so.”

So if you smoke for say 50 years (from age 24-74) you end up costing yourself 4.5 years of future life expectancy.

I understand why you might say that, but applying averages to predict a single individual’s outcome isn’t really reliable. And in your quoted example, the chance of dying from lung cancer is probably around 15%, which is usually an ugly death.

There is no such thing as an average smoker. You will either get lung cancer or you won’t, you will either have a heart attack or you won’t, and you’ll either have COPD or you won’t.

Smoking doesn’t just trim a little off the end of your life, which those averages seem to imply. Smoking increases the risk of truly catastrophic things happening to you during the prime of your life. Cancer, heart attack, stroke.

The impact of those catastrophic things on average life expectancy is diluted by the smokers that are fortunate enough to avoid them.

I don’t think it is anyone’s intent to incentive smoking with those numbers, but some misguided folks might. “Hey, if I smoke for a year, I’ll just die at age 76 and 11 months instead of at age 77, that’s not a bad trade.”

3556

I’m lost. Smoking shortens your life. OK. That means you die sooner. OK. The average lifespan is in the 70s. OK. Let’s say it’s 75. That’s 10 years after retirement. What are these lost wages being discussed? Are people in their 70s working?

Also, if a person dies sooner than that, let’s say at 30, because of smoking, how are lost wages to that person a cost to society as a whole? Someone else could take that job. Or maybe not, but there is one less person using up resources.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s not clear to me that such a calculation can ever cover all the factors involves in cost of being alive versus dying early, so what’s the point?

3557

Ok, Hiredgoons covered this already, but just to reiterate:

If the average American lives to 70, and suddenly one in ten American youths are injected with a virus that will kill them at age 20, you don’t look at the data, shrug, and say “Ehh, living to 65 isn’t that bad!”

3558

Do these calculations include the amounts of tax that the governments are making off of the cigarettes?

3559

A new post at the Incidental Economist: tort reform does not lead to cost control.

It is an excellent debunking of a persistent conservative myth.

3560

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts… Romneycare is basically working so far!