Tobacco-related indirect costs are double the direct costs. The economics of tobacco control—promoting the health benefits and dispelling tobacco industry myths—said Jeffery Drope, research professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
He made these remarks on Wednesday (December 11, 2024) during the South Asia Tobacco Control Leadership Program in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The event, which began on December 9, will continue until December 13. The five-day program is organized by the Institute of Global Tobacco Control of Johns Hopkins University.
In the opening program on `Economic Issues and Related Challenges in Tobacco Control – Increasing Tobacco Taxes and Integrating Tobacco Control in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),’ he said, keep in mind that these are the lower bounds; these are underestimates without a doubt in my mind. Because they’re not including a lot of the costs, then we have indirect costs. And these are the costs that we incur. Because people get sick and aren’t productive. Either they’re sick and they can’t go to work, or they go to work and they don’t work very well. Were they died on? And then they obviously don’t work right. And these have massive implications, and I would say, on average.
As a session moderator, he said, In the countries where we’ve done these studies, which is it?” What a member now. The indirect costs are usually double the direct costs. So just to give you some idea of the magnitude, and very often I will see. Direct costs studies, and I shut her a little bit because I know that these are probably a third of what the actual cost to the economy is.
He also said, Parents smoking in the house with their children are having a huge impact, and these are external costs. I would say the environmental costs are also external right when you have beaches. Covered in cigarette butts, that is an external cost for all of the rest of us non-smokers. Then we have the internal costs, so these are the costs paid by the tobacco user themselves or their families. Well, maybe put the families in with internal costs. Not just your out-of-pocket costs. We all pay more. For our universal health systems, because there’s smoke in. So this is just misapplication of our scarce resources, and it’s stupid alright. It’s totally preventable, so you shouldn’t smoke.
