NEWS FLASH
Find out how to get control of your personal budget
· Smoking costs the US up to $167 billion, every year. $75 billion of that in direct medical expenses, with the rest in lost productivity from ill patients missing work. That's more than $3,400 a year for health care and lost productivity each smoker (CDC).
· $9.7 billion a year is what Medicaid spends on smoking each year, according to a review of Medicare expenditures for 2000 through 2004 by RTI International.
· Good news? Smokers, your early death from smoking is good for governments because it leads to savings on health care, pensions, welfare and housing for the elderly, according to a 2002 Philip Morris study conducted by Arthur D. Little International. “The bad news,” according to smoking cessation specialist and author Arthur A. Hawkins II, “is that you won’t be around to enjoy it.”
· If governments around the world increase cigarette prices by at least 5-percent after inflation (tax) it could save as many as 10 million lives, a recommendation by The World Health Organization (WHO).
· 10 states raised the tax rates on cigarettes in the last year. Arizona lifted theirs 82 cents to $2.
· 8 states now have a cigarette tax greater than $2 a pack.
· A 10-percent price rise in cigarettes would lead to 40 million people giving up smoking and stop many more from starting the habit, according to a World Bank report.
· 12 states raised their cigarette taxes in 2005. 20 states have a tax of $1 or more and 5 have a tax of $2 or more.
· Iowa raised raised its tax by $1 a pack in 2007.
· Kentucky's "cigarette" tax becomes 30 cents per pack on June 1, 2005. This is up from a national low of 3 cents per pack and above the 10-cent tax in neighboring Tennessee. At nearly 31 percent, Kentucky has the nation's highest adult smoking rate, according to a report last year by CDC.
· Virginia raised its tax to 20 cents a pack from a 2.5 cents in 2004.
· The Bush administration rejected the US Department of Health and Human Services advisory committee's recommendation to increase the federal cigarette tax by $2 a pack and use at least half the revenue to help people kick the habit.
· Each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation $7.18 in medical care and lost productivity, according to CDC estimates.
· Smoking costs the nation $167 billion every year, more than $3,400 a year each smoker, for health care and lost productivity (CDC).
· Active smoking leads to a 21-percent rise* in healthcare costs and a 28-percent increase in medication costs (The Journal of Health Affairs).
· Secondhand smoke costs nearly $10 billion every year in the United States, according to a study by The Society of Actuaries.
· About 5 million of today's teens will die prematurely from smoking, leading to about $200 billion in future health-care costs (CDC).
· In general, countries in Europe have higher taxes on cigarettes – surprisingly coupled with higher rate of smoking.
· Taxes account for more than 70-percent of the price of a pack of cigarettes in Denmark and Portugal, according to Jacobson, lead author of Combating Teen Smoking: Research and Policy Strategies.
· In Peru, the selective consumption tax (ISC) on cigarettes, beer and fuel rose, for the second time this year, to 37.5-percent from 30-percent.
· In Japan, Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa wants to increase the sin tax on smoking by about 30 cents per pack.
· German cigarette sales slowed 5-percent in the first quarter of 2003 after the latest tax hike, according to the Federal Statistics Office. But the drop in cigarette sales was accompanied by a nearly 25-percent rise in the amount of (much cheaper) rolling tobacco bought in the same period.
· $2.3 billion is what the British Columbian, CAN economy loses from smoking.
· US Justice Department says cigarette makers should forfeit $289 billion in profits derived from a half-century of fraudulent, dangerous marketing, according to the New York Times (March 18, 2003).
· The 6 largest cigarette makers spent more than $11 billion on ads and promotions in 2001, according to a Federal Trade Commission report on cigarette sales and advertising.
· 159 billion yuan ($19.8 billion) was the amount of cigarettes taxes the Chinese government collected in 2005, around 5 percent of fiscal revenues.
· Smoking costs Florida over $20 billion per year. That's $6,942 per smoker or $17.22 for every $3.75 pack of cigarettes, according to The Florida Institute for Smoking Cessation (FISC).
In Singapore, safety supervisor caught smoking in a Jetstar Airways airplane toliet got fined 1,000 Singapore dollars (719 US dollars), according to The Straits Times.