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How did you guess what seeker could possibly put?;)
All those things are welcome - what I was pointing out really was my own personal experience, which is out of 4 doctors over 5 years, only one even mentioned my smoking habit, and then only in passing. In my registration form to one of them I admitted that I smoked 40-50 cigarettes a day (which I did, for a period of a few months) and the guy didn't even mention it when I went for a check up.
Your right that we don't make equal contributions to the NHS, and thats particularly relevant when it comes to smokers. However I dispute the figures (which as far as I can tell can be traced to Forest, the pro-smoking lobby) citing how much more money smokers put into the NHS than they take out. These figures (so far as I am aware) do not take into account secondary infections that can be attributable to smoking, complications attributable to smoking, or even casualties of second hand smoke. I'm not saying its necessarily possible to quantify these things, but I am saying it makes the taxation of tobacco argument somewhat less forceful. Also I'm fairly sure that it doesn't take into account other drains smoking makes on government spending unrelated to direct effects on health: how many fires are caused by smoking? It costs money to clean up fag ends and empty packs (or recycle them for that matter), provide bins, enforce no-smoking rules in various places (e.g. on public transport), etc. These are small expenditures individually, but add up and subtract from the revenue gained from taxation from cigarettes that supposedly all goes straight into the NHS.
I don't think the argument has a hell of a lot of credibility anyway. If tobacco was banned, the money thats smokers would have spent on tobacco would presumably be spent on other leisure activities or goods that are also taxable. Thus its not like all this revenue will disappear if everyone stopped smoking, and the cost of treatment would be reduced respectively.
Similarly with drinking: a lot of the revenue is going to go into waste disposal, etc, and also dealing with excess/binge drinkers - this must be a considerable expense. Think about the amount of police time spent on drinkers. Also "problem drinkers" (i.e. those who are most likely to have to be treated by the NHS) provide less money than those who enjoy good quality booze, because they tend to drink less expensive alcohol (which therefore generate less revenue through taxation).
Most importantly, your argument cannot even be applied to poor diet/junk food. This raises next to no money for the government. And the cost of treating the legions of obese in years to come is a time-bomb of expenditure...
p.s. seeker, please excuse me for not replying to your points/arguments, but I've tried to engage post-modernists/nihilists/relativists before and haven't really found it worth my time. I understand your arguments and find them intellectually interesting but disagree with them and find them pragmatically useless.
Then they are failing in their duty, IMHO
My link earlier was to ASH, rather than FOREST, and they mention the sickness effect not just hospital admissions.
The word presumably is rather important there, wouldn't you say? Certainly the tax take per pound would be less because most other taxable goods don't carry such a high tax level.
It's also worth noting that the £20bn (or so) which comes from smoking taxes is paid by a minority. The gap which would result from a ban would therefore be spread across a much wider section of the population.
The other thing to consider is that the OP was talking about the cost of treatment, and therefore the tax revenue is directly relevant.
I could.
But I won't.
Hell no! What you going to do with your (once) 40/50 a day habit if tobacco were banned? You're not just gonna quit! I, for one, would still be buying tobacco from somewhere, banned substance or not, at least until I quit!
While i thought his idea was fundamentally flawed in a few areas, it was interesting to see fat people's perspective on why they were fat. The guy who was so fat that he hadn't left his bed in 8 years who didn't think being that fat was his fault was unbelievable. Then the group of fatties in the cake shop made me laugh, the massive black woman who only though food was a small factor in why she was so big. "I come from a long line of big women" - Yeah, you must have that fat gene.
ETA: Just like to clarify, it wasn't Patricia Hewitt.
Still a nasty habit though, and when you weigh in all the externalities who knows whereabouts it lies. I'd rather not have cancer, than have cancer and have it cured, because there are so many other factors, like the emotional damage, etc. etc.
Beware, there is a rabid, corrupt antismoker movement in this country and it wants to end all smoking, by whatever means.
I know you were joking about the tobacco companies, as it happens I dont work for any Big T
You may want to visit the following two links for an idea of what the antismoker movement are up to.
This is the current proposal in Belmont California, which would ban smoking in all indoor and outdoor areas of the city with the exception of detached, single-family homes.
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/
And as for treating smokers, this should be of interest too
http://www.pro-choicesmokingdoctor.blogspot.com/
For a thorough expose of all the antismoker lies, this is a good starting point
http://www.forces.org/
You will be surprised at what is going on.
Which lies are you talking about, the one where smoking is linked to disease or...?
I know this will not go down well with you at first, hardly surprising since the government has spent millions convincing the public of it's danger when in fact it is all lies, damned lies and statistics.
There are no hard statistics on passive smoking deaths, because no deaths have ever been officially, legally or scientifically attributed to it.
Try reading the other side of the story that is rarely allowed in the media.
Those links I posted should help.
I mentioned it as this is what the "passive smoking kills" fraud is based on.
For a sound denouncement of the lies have a look here.
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/
I have a natural cyncism of any website on controversial subjects which claims to discover the 'truth' - that holds true for passive smoking sites as well as 9/11 conspiracy nut-jobs.
Do you accept that cigarette smoke contains toxins?