Cost of smokers

Much is made by anti-tobacco groups of the cost of smokers and smoking to the NHS (or the economy) in the UK, but such bland statements generally ignore various factors.

General observations

First is the claim that smoking breaks cost the economy millions, or even billions while conveniently ignoring 'coffee breaks.' The fact that breaks are needed in some jobs to remain productive seems to be ignored, as is the rather overwhelming fact that workers taking breaks (of any kind) is a matter between employer and employee, and as long as the work gets done, then there is no monetary cost:

Workers need breaks from their work in order to remain productive and on top of their work. Whether they take a fag break or a coffee break is irrelevant – and one cannot assume that people do not indulge in work activities or discussions while smoking a cigarette or over a cup of coffee or tea. It does not cost the economy – unlike expecting people to work without taking breaks. The question is; does the work get done, not how many minutes were taken out of the day on breaks recharging the mental batteries. And just how many cigarette related fires in the workplace have there been, precisely? This is barrel scraping to the extreme, frankly.

Also mentioned in the referenced Daily Mail article is the claim that smokers have more sick days off than non-smokers, with reference to Weng, Ali & Leonardi-Bee (2012) - a piece of research with data of dubious provenance:

• if 3 non-smokers out of a workforce of 1000 have a sick day off, the implication to the research is that there will be about 4 smokers who have a day off. Or put another way, if sick days by smokers are costing business £1.1billion, then sick days by non-smokers are costing those same businesses a similar (but obviously smaller) amount - this amount is never mentioned, but from those numbers £0.83billion would be a decent estimate.
• the researchers cherry-picked their data - it was a meta-study of 29 studies, and of those they examined they used at most 17, and at least 8, to produce individual 'findings.'

Another claim is that smokers cost the NHS, and that they should pay extra for their habit. Ignoring the fact that they already do. Excise on tobacco in the UK for 2012 will be equal to 16.5% of the (pre-excise, pre-tax) retail price plus an equivalent £167.41 per 1,000 cigarettes (£3.3482 per 20.) On top of this 20% VAT is charged. On a £7.50 packet of Marlboro for example, the net cost is £2.02, Excise £4.23 and VAT £1.25 for a total tax-take of £5.48 (73%):

Inc VAT+Excise	VAT	Inc Excise alone	Excise	Net	Total Tax	Tax %age of Cost
Formula	=A2-A2*(100/120)	=A2-B2	=3.3482+(C2-C2*(100/116.5))	=C2-D2	=B2+D2	=F2/A2
£5.50	£0.917	£4.583	£3.997	£0.586	£4.914	89%
£5.75	£0.958	£4.792	£4.027	£0.765	£4.985	87%
£6.00	£1.000	£5.000	£4.056	£0.944	£5.056	84%
£6.25	£1.042	£5.208	£4.086	£1.122	£5.128	82%
£6.50	£1.083	£5.417	£4.115	£1.301	£5.199	80%
£6.75	£1.125	£5.625	£4.145	£1.480	£5.270	78%
£7.00	£1.167	£5.833	£4.174	£1.659	£5.341	76%
£7.25	£1.208	£6.042	£4.204	£1.838	£5.412	75%
£7.50	£1.250	£6.250	£4.233	£2.017	£5.483	73%
£7.75	£1.292	£6.458	£4.263	£2.195	£5.555	72%
£8.00	£1.333	£6.667	£4.292	£2.374	£5.626	70%

Income for 2011/12 (the year prior to these figures) were £9.5bn from Excise and £2.6bn from VAT for a total of £12.1bn. Health care spending (including spending on the likes of Alcohol Concern, ASH, and homoeopathy) was £121.3bn for 2011

Note that this implied 10% total funding of the NHS from tobacco, does not include the other tax extracted from smokers (in the manner it is extracted from non-smokers) in the form of VAT on all other products, excise on other products such as fuel etc. (I explicitly don't include excise from alcohol, since there are similar arguments to tobacco that can be made for that.)

Finally, there is the alleged cost to the 'tax-payer' in the form of old-aged smokers:

• if people do have smoking related illnesses in old age, they are more likely to die earlier
• thus they will require less treatment
• additionally they will be drawing down less state retirement pension