Quit Smoking Support - Facts About Smoking and Ways to Quit (PART I)

The Phillip Morris ad states, “There is no safe cigarette.” Therefore, it is obvious that cigarettes cause a number of health problems to not only the person partaking in the act, but also to others being exposed to secondhand smoke. In addition to smoking being extremely harmful to an individual’s health, smoking is also a financial burden for the smoker and all of society. For this reason, smoking has become a major dilemma, especially in the United States. Furthermore, according to a report from the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, smoking cigarettes is the number-one cause of preventable death in the United States. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that smoking it causes more deaths than alcohol, illegal drugs, traffic accidents, fires, AIDS, all forms of air pollution, homicides and suicides combined

Raise Cigarette Taxes
What can be done to reduce this terrible toll? First, raise the price of cigarettes through increased sales taxes. For this purpose, price is a significant factor in all products—as price rises, demand goes down. Second, educate young people on how challenging quitting is, how much money they will have to throw out, and how they do not only hurt themselves, but also hurt others in the process. And, finally, provide moral support by consistently working to change attitudes that encourage the use of smoking.

Where Did All The Money Go?
Smoking is an extremely expensive habit, not only for the smoker, but also for society. For example, according to a report from Tobacco Free for Life, the average smoker smokes a pack of cigarettes a day at a cost of $4.50 per pack, which results in $1,641.50 a year. Therefore, raising the sales tax on cigarettes would reduce the amount of cigarettes bought. Furthermore, Americans buy more that 500 billion cigarettes every year; teens under eighteen alone smoke seventeen billion of these cigarettes. In addition to the growing popularity of smoking, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention states that adults who live below the poverty line are more likely to be smokers than those above the poverty line. Furthermore, the financial burden of smoking is not only felt by the smoker, but also by the U.S. taxpayer. For example, Federal and State funds pay more than 43% of all smoking-related medical care expenditures. According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, due to a smoker’s annual health care costs and the loss of productivity and financial earnings from tobacco-related disabilities, the cost to the U.S. economy is estimated at $100 billion. Therefore, increasing the price of cigarettes through sales tax will increase the financial burden of smoking on the smoker and cause that person to stop buying cigarettes, whilst helping the national economy.