Smoking costs U.S. economy almost $900bn a year |
Smoking cost the U.S. economy $891bn in 2020 - almost 10 times the cigarette industry's $92bn revenue, according to the authors of a new American Cancer Society study. "Economic losses from cigarette smoking far outweigh any economic benefit from the tobacco industry - wages, and salaries of those employed by the industry, tax revenue and industry profit combined," said Dr. Nigar Nargis, senior scientific director of tobacco control research at the cancer society. States lost $1,100 income per person annually (per capita) on average from cigarette smoking, the study found. The largest losses were in Kentucky, which lost $1,674 per capita, West Virginia with $1,605 and Arkansas at $1,603. States with the smallest losses were Utah at $331, Idaho at $680 and Arizona at $701. "As a society, we can mitigate these economic losses through coordinated and comprehensive evidence-based tobacco control measures, which encourage people to quit smoking and prevent people from starting to smoke in the first place," Nargis said in a cancer society news release.