Cost of smoking sky-high: study

Tobacco smoking costs Dutch society between €21 billion and €43 billion per year; or about €2,000 per person per year, according to a story by Janene Pieters for the NL Times citing a study by SEO Economic Research.

The study was commissioned by Stichting Eindspel Tabak (Foundation Endgame Tobacco), which is working towards the gradual implementation of a total ban on the sale of tobacco in the country.

For this study, SEO looked at the costs and benefits of tobacco smoking on Dutch society. Costs were taken to include the value of life-years lost, loss of life quality, loss of production and healthcare costs.

The benefits were taken to include, among other things, state pensions that did not need to be paid to those who were perceived to have died prematurely.

Because the numbers concerned cannot be precisely fixed, the SEO set three scenarios – a low cost, a high cost and a medium cost – and concluded that smokers cost the Netherlands between €21.1 billion and €43.2 billion every year.

According to the researchers, 25 percent of the Dutch population smokes. Most pick up smoking at a young age and then never quit. On average, 20,000 people in the Netherlands die each year from the effects of smoking. An average smoker dies 10 years earlier than someone who never smoked.