What would happen if Americans stopped smoking?

[Ace]

Why do smokers think that cigarette butts are a license to litter? You think that crap is organic material like a banana peel or something?

 

[RickStain]

It would have immediate economic repercussions.
The timing of it right now would be awful.
But if the economic climate were different, while it would still have a huge negative effect, it would eventually be weatherable.

In terms of our economy, why would getting rid of something that conservatively costs our economy more than $100 billion annually in medical costs be awful timing wise?

It's amazing to me how pervasive broken window fallacy and a lack of understanding of opportunity cost are when people talk about economics.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Why do smokers think that cigarette butts are a license to litter? You think that crap is organic material like a banana peel or something?

That's one of my pet peeves. Especially in the summer drought season when you see highway medians burned out from a smoker tossing a butt from his car.

 

[RickStain]

Why do smokers think that cigarette butts are a license to litter? You think that crap is organic material like a banana peel or something?

That's one of my pet peeves. Especially in the summer drought season when you see highway medians burned out from a smoker tossing a butt from his car.

Same here. The occasional run-in with secondhand smoke doesn't bother me, but butts everywhere do. And yet every smoker I know swears they never do it.

 

[Armchair_QB]

People would be fatter. Supermodels would cease to exist.

he said quit smoking, not quit cocaine.

 

[playthrough]

One section that leaped off the page to me: "The end of smoking would even ripple as far as corporate philanthropy. Between 1997 and 2005, the tobacco industry made over $143 million in charitable donations."

Isn't the tobacco industry as a whole profitable to the tune of billions upon billions? So over eight years they donated about $18 mil per year? I'm quite unimpressed.

 

[imjustagirl]

I would become way bitchier.

 

[Point of Order]

Why do smokers think that cigarette butts are a license to litter? You think that crap is organic material like a banana peel or something?

We're not keeping those nasty things in our cars.

 

[Armchair_QB]

I would become way bitchier.

Really?

 

[EStreetJoe]

It would have immediate economic repercussions.
The timing of it right now would be awful.
But if the economic climate were different, while it would still have a huge negative effect, it would eventually be weatherable.

In terms of our economy, why would getting rid of something that conservatively costs our economy more than $100 billion annually in medical costs be awful timing wise?

Because the economy (states combined and federal) would likely lose more than $100 billion in tax revenue from the per-pack taxes charged and income taxes the cigarette companies (or their parent companies) pay.
Plus the tens of thousands people involved in the manufacture of cigarettes (from farm employees to the factories where the cigarettes are made to delivery people) would suddenly become unemployed.

 

[RickStain]

It would have immediate economic repercussions.
The timing of it right now would be awful.
But if the economic climate were different, while it would still have a huge negative effect, it would eventually be weatherable.

In terms of our economy, why would getting rid of something that conservatively costs our economy more than $100 billion annually in medical costs be awful timing wise?

Because the economy (states combined and federal) would likely lose more than $100 billion in tax revenue from the per-pack taxes charged and income taxes the cigarette companies (or their parent companies) pay.
Plus the tens of thousands people involved in the manufacture of cigarettes (from farm employees to the factories where the cigarettes are made to delivery people) would suddenly become unemployed.

Broken window fallacy.

All that money that isn't being spent on cigarettes? It'd go to other parts of the economy. 10s of thousands of people would be hired in other fields because all the money that used to get spent on cigarettes can now be spent on something else, and that increases demand across the board.

 

[holy bull]

French people would look down their noses at us. Unlike how it is now.