The Cost of Smoking

Smoking costs more than just a few bucks for a pack of butts. It costs lives, and those lost lives cost billions of dollars every year in the state of North Carolina alone.

Costs of Smoking: Dollars

Just as an example... in 1992, the deaths and diseases caused by smoking in North Carolina cost 2.1 BILLION DOLLARS. Let's break that down:

$450 million (that's 22%) were for direct medical costs
$1.7 billion (that's 78%) were for indirect costs

The direct medical costs represent the diagnosis and treatment of smoking-related illnesses. 70% of that $450 million was spent on hospital care.

The indirect costs represent the lost earnings of those killed and disabled by smoking related illnesses. Can you believe that? $2.1 billion in North Carolina alone that could have been saved if those people hadn't smoked cigarettes.

Costs of Smoking: Death

Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States, and in North Carolina too. Did you know that on average, smokers die nearly seven years earlier than nonsmokers? (CDC, 1994) More than half of those unable or unwilling to quit die from smoking.

Every day in North Carolina, 33 people die from smoking. That's thirty-three people with lives and friends and families every day that would still be alive if it weren't for cigarettes. That's like having two major airline disasters in our state every week, all year round!! These deaths account for one out of every five deaths in our state!

Cigarette smoking causes more premature deaths than AIDS, cocaine, heroin, alcohol (including drunk drivers), fires, car accidents, murder, and suicide - combined!! (JAMA, 1987)

Each of these deaths effects the family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances of the person who died. OK, so maybe you're thinking - all of those people who died were old - this isn't something you have to worry about, you can quit anytime you want, right? But you see, the tragic thing is that for almost all of those adults who died... the path towards death started when they started smoking - in adolescence.

The fact is, 80% of adult smokers began their deadly addiction before the age of 18! (CDC 1999) In fact, the average age when someone tries tobacco for the first time is 13. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989) So maybe you and your friends aren't quite as safe as you think?

The deaths in North Carolina caused by smoking are staggering. It is estimated that 12,193 deaths in 1995 were caused by smoking.

Out of those 12,193 deaths:

36% were cancer deaths

41% were cardiovascular disease deaths

68% were deaths to me

Those numbers also represent 176,115 Years of Potential Life Lost. That means that if those people hadn't smoked, leaving them able to live out their full life expectancies, all together those 12,193 people would have lived another 176,115 years. So... in one year, tobacco cost North Carolinians almost 200,000 years of life - years of life that were precious to the people that lost them.