Smokers are doing their country a huge favour by boosting tax revenue, dying early, and not drawing a pension, according to a report by the tobacco giant Philip Morris.
Officials in the Czech Republic have been given an analysis, commissioned by the cigarette manufacturer, which suggests that the economic benefits of smoking to the country far outweigh the harmful effects. Rather than being a drain on healthcare resources, smoking actually saves the country more than £100m ($140m) a year because of the premature death of smokers, concluded the Massachusetts based consulting firm Arthur D Little International, which carried out the analysis.
It worked out that the early death of smokers saved the government up to £21.5m on health care, pensions, and housing for elderly people in 1999. The auditors also calculated how much the country spent on caring for people with smoking related diseases and the income tax lost when smokers die. Overall the net profit made by the government, including the revenues from tobacco tax, in 1999 came to £102.3m.
Philip Morris moved into the Czech Republic almost a decade ago and now owns nearly 80% of the former state tobacco company, Tabak, selling its flagship Marlboro cigarettes alongside local brands. The company said that it received the report at the end of last year and made it available to officials in the Czech Republic after they complained about the enormous burden that smoking was placing on their healthcare resources.
“This is an economic impact study, no more, no less,” said Robert Kaplan, a spokesman for Philip Morris's international tobacco unit in Rye Brook, New York.
Its attitude was criticised by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a US antismoking lobby group. “Philip Morris's only interest is its own bottom line, not the protection of our children or the public health, and this report shows the lengths to which it is willing to go to get its way when it thinks no one is watching,” said its president, Matthew Myers.
He added: “It is the same Philip Morris that has been invited by the Bush administration to negotiate a settlement to the federal tobacco lawsuit. A company that goes out of its way to rationalise as a good thing the fact that its products kill people does not deserve such a seat at the table.”