Cigarette smoking is responsible for an estimated 443,000 deaths annually nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control reports the number of tobacco related deaths in the US is greater than all HIV/AIDS, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined. [i] So what is stopping these deadly and addictive products from becoming illegal?
To put the number of tobacco related deaths in perspective, the CDC credits the notorious H1N1 virus with a mere 3,900 deaths since the flu first appeared in the spring [ii] – a fraction of the number of deaths caused by cigarette smoking. Yet even as the government spent billions preparing for pandemic outbreaks such as H1N1, the domestic tobacco industry spent $75 billion between 2000 and 2005 on advertising and promotion.[iii] Despite killing almost half a million customers annually, the tobacco industry is so profitable that it can spend more than a billion dollars a month attracting new business.
While cigarette manufactures sicken the public, the stratospheric rise in healthcare costs is forcing states to cut crucial programs. There is a national panic over how to fund medical care for the oncoming tsunami of aging baby boomers. We can scarcely manage treating our already ailing public, let alone millions more who will need serious medical care because of years of cigarette smoking.
It seems like common sense that we make cigarettes illegal, but banning tobacco products is both politically and economically unfeasible for a number of reasons.
Tobacco is so deeply entrenched in our culture that efforts to restrict its use are viewed by much of the smoking public as assaults on personal freedom. Many argue that smoking cigarettes is a choice, despite the medical reality that cigarettes are more addictive than many illegal hard line drugs. Choice or not, once you start smoking, it is hard to stop.
Tobacco is a multi-billion dollar industry that employs tens of thousands of people at a time when unemployment is at 10%. Tobacco companies pay millions in taxes on revenue they earn, and they are top contributors to political campaign funds. Making cigarettes illegal would be a political impossibility, since on the surface it would appear that the action would both raise unemployment and reduce tobacco tax revenues.
Even if cigarettes were illegal, we must look to our country’s most famous attempt at banning a popular substance – the prohibition of alcohol – to imagine what effects a smoking ban might have. A thriving black market in cigarettes would rejuvenate organized crime rings that have been weakened in recent decades. Money that could be collected as tax on cigarette sales will instead line the pockets of criminals. In addition, our overcrowded and underfunded legal system can’t possibly expand to absorb a new genera of illegal substance. We can’t bear the cost of trying and jailing marijuana users, let alone cigarette smokers and smugglers.
Simply stated, the US can’t afford to make cigarettes illegal. We can’t afford to lose the tobacco industry, or to enforce a ban. So while our nation works to restructure its healthcare system, big tobacco will keep marketing to future patients. As for rising health care costs? The consumer will pay for it, that is if he has any money left after buying those cartons of cigarettes.
[i] Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm
[ii] Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm
[iii] Federal Trade Commission. http://www.ftc.gov/reports/tobacco/2007cigarette2004-2005.pdf
