To put the magnitude of the problems faced by the vaping community here in the US think about this.
According to the Tax Policy Center we can estimate that US tobacco tax revenue in 2014 would be around eighteen billion dollars ($18,000,000,000) annually.
The Master Settlement Agreement provides an additional ten billion ($10,000,000,000) in revenue.
Where does this go?
To the "tobacco economy" of course!
This means about $28 billion per year spent on keeping you from smoking.
Where does this go?
To lawyers, "programs" to reduce smoking, "youth" programs, oversight, regulation, various funds to monitor regulation, youth programs, government agency to monitor the regulators, etc.
Of course this includes all the ANTZ funding, and so on as well.
My guess is at least $150 billion per year in direct (see this from the CDC) and indirect medical costs - but this is probably low...
Maybe $200 billion all told per year.
If the US "tobacco economy" were a country it might just make the top 50 (see wikipedia) - around the size of the Czech Republic, Peru or Iran.
So think about this: If vaping succeeds in making smoking (true combustion tobacco) go the way it did in Sweden (down to maybe 1% because of SNUS) it would be like wiping out the economy of an entire country, like the Czech Republic, for example.
The Czech Republic has some 10 million people, Iran like 76 million.
According to this may 250,000 are directly employed in the US in the "tobacco economy" directly.
Probably another 1.5 million in medical staff.
So maybe 1.75 million people making a living because 440,000 people die of smoking-related illness.
These estimate are probably very conservative.
But all in all this probably represents at least 1% of the 16.8 trillion dollar US economy each year.
What would it mean if traditional "cigarette smoking" were to vanish overnight?
Literally millions of economic refugees - no job, no hope - smoking is dead...
According to the Tax Policy Center we can estimate that US tobacco tax revenue in 2014 would be around eighteen billion dollars ($18,000,000,000) annually.
The Master Settlement Agreement provides an additional ten billion ($10,000,000,000) in revenue.
Where does this go?
To the "tobacco economy" of course!
This means about $28 billion per year spent on keeping you from smoking.
Where does this go?
To lawyers, "programs" to reduce smoking, "youth" programs, oversight, regulation, various funds to monitor regulation, youth programs, government agency to monitor the regulators, etc.
Of course this includes all the ANTZ funding, and so on as well.
My guess is at least $150 billion per year in direct (see this from the CDC) and indirect medical costs - but this is probably low...
Maybe $200 billion all told per year.
If the US "tobacco economy" were a country it might just make the top 50 (see wikipedia) - around the size of the Czech Republic, Peru or Iran.
So think about this: If vaping succeeds in making smoking (true combustion tobacco) go the way it did in Sweden (down to maybe 1% because of SNUS) it would be like wiping out the economy of an entire country, like the Czech Republic, for example.
The Czech Republic has some 10 million people, Iran like 76 million.
According to this may 250,000 are directly employed in the US in the "tobacco economy" directly.
Probably another 1.5 million in medical staff.
So maybe 1.75 million people making a living because 440,000 people die of smoking-related illness.
These estimate are probably very conservative.
But all in all this probably represents at least 1% of the 16.8 trillion dollar US economy each year.
What would it mean if traditional "cigarette smoking" were to vanish overnight?
Literally millions of economic refugees - no job, no hope - smoking is dead...
Tobacco use is one of the leading causes of death, killing people every year. It was done to buy servants and slaves, to pay local taxes and tithes, and to buy goods manufactured in England.
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