When I watch people who smoke, I often ask myself how can they do it. What is it that makes these people tick. They deliberately engage in a vice that they know will probably hasten their own death.
Is it because they really don't enjoy life and dying early is OK with them.
Is it because they don't believe in the science that shows how dangerous smoking is?
Or it it because they are selfish. They think of themselves and their enjoyment and don't worry about the consequences until they occur. They don't care that smoking arround their kids infuences their kids to smoke. They don't care that others often have to foot the medical bills in the form of higher insurance premiums, and they don't care about secondary smoke.
I've only just found this thread, so ifd the point has already been made, my apologies.
Preamble - those in the UK can skip this and go to the main point below, but it doesn't appear known in wide areas outside.
For those not aware of the world outside [fill in your own predjudice], here in the UK we have the National Health Service. This provides health care where
at the point of use/need we don't pay. Moreover, we have access to the finest health care in the world - the USA notwithstanding. To illustrate, I give two personal examples.
A few years ago, my wife suddenly suffered severe chest pains. I didn't have to worry about if we could pay: I called 999 - Emergency - and an ambulance arrived within minutes - before, in fact, I had completed the call. The upshot was that she was eventually diagnosed with gall stones, surgery was organised, full recovery.
Last year I suffered what turned out to be a seisure. My wife called 999, I was carted into A&E, and over a period of a couple of months went through the whole gamut of medical investigations - CAT, MRI, EEG etc - all at no cost to me at the point of need.
HOWEVER, I (and my wife) have been paying taxes over the whole of our working lives just so that this happens. Socialist Medicine. How awful.
Main point
Lets apply this to smokers.
A while ago one of the major tobacco companies - Phillip Morris, I think - carried out a study which compared the health costs which smokers incurred because of their habit, with the tax they had paid on the tobacco they had consumed during their smoking lives.
It turned out that they had paid more tax on the tobacco than the cost to the health service of their habit, leaving a surplus which subsidised the health care of non-smokers . Hmm
Perhaps smokers should be commended on their public service attitude whereby they sacrificed their longevity for the public good.
PS. I don't smoke - now.
