Emphysema is the one of the most common disease related to smoking with 1 in 4 developing the disease. Emphysema obstructs the airways affecting the bronchioles and alveoli. Cilia are immobilized for several hours and stimulate mucus, which begins to block the airways. The alveolar walls are destroyed because the disease causes them to enlarge permanently. It also reduces the amount of elastase inhibitors in the lungs. The lungs have a substance called elastin to make the walls stretch and not snap; this has an enzyme called elastase to stop the production of this to ensure too much is not made. But this also needs to be controlled, this is done with the aid of the protease inhibitor, but with emphysema, this inhibitor is less and so the elastase is more, meaning little tears in the walls of the lung are created.
Despite this, the government has not taken drastic action to stop this happening to our society. The prices of cigarettes have been increased to prevent the purchase of cigarettes and to initially deter the public from taking up the habit. If you are a current smoker the small increase of 8p and inflation rates will not discourage you to purchase cigarettes as your cravings would override this.
Therefore, the chancellor’s failure to raise tobacco tax above inflation is a critical missed opportunity to cut the death toll from smoking. It seems as if he would not want to discourage the smoker. Deborah Arnott, Director of the health campaigning charity ASH, said:
“This is disappointing. The Chancellor has missed a golden opportunity to boost the government’s strategy to cut smoking rates and improve the nation’s health. Such a small increase in tax is unlikely to provide the incentive smokers need to help them to quit. Sadly this means more needless, totally preventable heart disease and cancer cases and thousands of premature deaths.” (6)
A lot of smokers also suffer with sexual problems. Smokers are more likely than non-smokers to become impotent or have difficulty in maintaining an erection in middle life. This is thought to be due to smoking-related damage of the blood vessels to the penis. However this may be seen buy the government as a positive side effect. Impotence would affect the birth rate, and a decrease in the birth rate eventually effects the government as it means a decreasing population which is much cheaper – no pensions to be paid, no health costs, no education costs etc. Also if you smoke when you are pregnant, it reduces the amount of oxygen that crosses the placenta to the baby. Smokers have an increased risk of miscarriage, or having a low birth weight or premature baby. Premature and low birth weight babies are more prone to illness and infections. This would also decrease the birth rate. Another reason why smokers would have less children would be that they spend their money on cigarettes and decide they could not afford the upbringing of a child which costs more money nowadays than ever before. (1)
The main reason why any government would encourage and promote smoking which is ultimately the death of a nation would be for financial reasons. If the government encourages a person to smoke, they would most likely die at an early age from one smoking disease or another meaning that this person’s state pension would not have to be paid.
Recently, Anti-smoking campaigners have reacted with fury to a report delivered to the Czech Government, which argues that there are economic benefits to smoking. The report, drawn up for tobacco giant Philip Morris, found that the Czech Republic saved about $147m in 1997 as a result of the deaths of smokers who would not live to use healthcare or housing for the elderly. (2)
"Following that logic, the best recommendation to governments would be to kill all people on the day of their retirement," Public health campaigner, Eva Kralikova said. (2)
Also, it seems apparent that the early death of smokers does not deter their effective contribution to the national economy. The smoker buys cigarettes, spending money in a "Pyramid" pattern; this is an allusion to the original economic and political purposes of the Egyptians when they built their pyramids: The pyramids were meant to soak up excess wealth, deterring any potential instability caused by those lower in the economy, fighting to acquire this wealth. Likewise, the entire smoking industry and the accordant medical conditions can be described, as "Pyramids." (5)
Philip Morris recently published a study about the lighter side of smoking: in the Czech Republic, the early deaths of smokers may cause a financial boon to a financially flailing government which cannot afford to provide them services in the later years of life.
However, some MP’s of the Czech government could argue that those social costs are of benefit to society as a whole. There's a death deficit in this world; people are dying of diseases like AIDS, malnutrition, and cholera; things that are not always self inflicted, as smoking damage nearly always is. The smoker, rather than the innocent, starving child, should die - the money saved by the smoker's death could save this child.
Perhaps, when the global fascist order finally takes over completely, they can remove all health benefits for smokers while removing all restrictions on smoking? Then, the resultant depopulation will free up funds for AIDS relief, malnutrition, and other pressing health issues.
To conclude, financially, it would be in the government’s interest and would improve the economic market. However, it is both morally and ethically wrong to encourage a habit that kills over 300 people each day. The £1.5bn spent on smoking related diseases in NHS hospitals and surgery’s could be spent on developing a cure for cancer or providing more shelter for the homeless if something like smoking were to be banned altogether (even though this would probably have more harmful effects with smuggling cigarettes etc in the long run). This attitude will eventually backfire on the Government, although encouraging people to smoke would get them a slightly bigger income from the taxes, in the long run it would have a detrimental affect on its financial resources.
Bibliography:
- The UK Smoking Epidemic. Heath Education Authority 1998
- The Guardian
- DOE Science News. October 6, 2003