CDC study puts economic loss from smoking at $7 a pack

Posted 3:00PM on Thursday 11th April 2002 ( 23 years ago )

ATLANTA - Each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation $7 in medical care and lost productivity - about $3,400 a year for every smoker, the government said Thursday. The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the total cost of smoking at $157 billion a year. Health experts had previously estimated it was about $96 billion a year. Americans buy about 22 billion packs of cigarettes annually. The CDC study is the first to establish a per-pack cost to the nation for smoking. It found $3.45 per pack was spent on medical care costs related to smoking, and a cost of $3.73 more in lost productivity, for a total of $7.18. The latter figure represents productivity lost because of premature death from smoking. By comparison, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes in 1999 was $2.92. ``There's a big difference in the cost to society and what society is getting back in tax,'' said the CDC's Dr. Terry Pechacek. ``We believe society is bearing a burden for the individual behavioral choices of the smokers.'' The CDC study concluded the total cost for the nation in medical care and lost productivity because of smoking was $157.7 billion or $3,391 for every smoker in the country. The CDC said it analyzed expenses, both personal and for the health care industry, and used national medical surveys to calculate how much of the cost could be avoided by eliminating smoking. A spokesman for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson said the study was flawed because it presented the figures in a vacuum, without comparing smoking to the financial burdens other people - nonsmokers with diabetes, for example - place on society. ``What does that number mean?'' spokesman Mark Smith said. ``It doesn't mean anything. It's bordering on meaningless.'' The agency also reported that smoking results in about 440,000 deaths a year in the United States, up from the government's previous figure of 430,000, established in the early 1990s. The new study was conducted from 1995 to 1999. ``The fact that nearly half a million Americans lose their lives each year because of smoking-related illnesses is a significant public health tragedy,'' said Dr. David Fleming, the CDC's acting director. Among other findings of the study: Smoking causes an average man to lose more than 13 years of life, and an average woman to lose 14.5 years. Smoking during pregnancy causes about 1,000 infant deaths each year. Lung cancer causes the most deaths among smokers, following by heart disease and lung disease. Men account for about 60 percent of smoking deaths - 264,000 a year, compared with 178,000 deaths among women.

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