What would happen if Americans stopped smoking?

Would end guys saying, "If she smokes, she f*cks." (Well, at least that's what some guys I know used to say.)

 

Never gonna happen. Smokes and liquor are the last legal drugs we have, and they account for a shitload of money floating around this country.

 

I said that one time as a youth in a lunch room and a large, crew-cut truck driver with a 16-year-old daughter who smoked took exception to that.

I haven't had the urge to smoke -- or say that again -- since.

 

This has always ticked me off. And then three months ago, when I went shopping for a new car, I was shocked to discover that many new models no longer have ashtrays. I test drove models from four different automakers and there wasn't an ash tray in any of them. I didn't know this was the case. Not that this is an excuse . . .

 

Allow me to try answering Rick's and Ragu's responses to my post in one swoop.

I am a non-smoker. I can't stand being around people when they're smoking, I hate the smell. However there is the reality that whenever politicians are looking for a quick fix for revenue they raise the sin taxes (cigarettes, alcohol). If everyone stopped smoking, that option would be eliminated. Also, to play devil's advocate, if people didn't spend money on cigarettes, who's to say they'd spend it on something else? Given the economy they'd likely save the money to pay off other bills. Maybe I was being sarcastic or exaggerating the employment aspect.
I was also looking at the costs from a purely governmental perspective as opposed to the entire economy. Smokers make money for the insurance industry as they can charge smokers higher premiums. As long as the smoker has health insurance the hospital or doctors are still making money, on the other hand, if they're uninsured, the medical providers will lose money hand-over-fist. I'm not an economist but how do you put a dollar amount on lost productivity due to sick days - don't other employees have to pick up the slack?

 

If people save the money to pay off other bills, the companies that they owed those bills to get the money. It all goes somewhere.

The key to understanding economics is to stop thinking of it in terms of "money." Money represents stuff and time. The economy grows when we have more people spending time doing productive things, when we find ways to make them more productive, and when we have more natural resources.

Using a percentage of our time and stuff to create popular, self-administered poison is only a negative. When it stops, we'll use that same time and stuff to do something more useful.

 

Very nice!

 

I put my cigarette butts in a Pepsi can that sits in my cupholder. I rotate them out as needed.

 

What the hell would we do after our eight seconds of connubial bliss?

 

Came across this on Planet Money and thought it'd fit in well here. Bloomberg looks at why China won't stop smoking anytime soon:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-20/china-endorsing-tobacco-in-schools-adds-to-10-trillion-gdp-cost.html