Is smoking bad?

First of all,

According to the World Health Organization 100 million people died worldwide from tobacco use in the past century and another 1 billion are expected to die this century.

There are an estimated 5.4 million smoking-related deaths a year worldwide, and that number is expected to continue to rise dramatically if no actions are taken, said Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.

The report said nearly two-thirds of the world’s smokers live in 10 countries, with China accounting for 30 percent of them, India 10 percent and the rest divided among Indonesia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.

OK, one billion less people than there would be, 40 percent in China and India. Can this be all bad? A billion less people have got to improve the environment.

Oh, then there’s this,

Dutch researchers have confirmed what fat smokers have waited years to hear - that healthy people are actually a greater burden on the state, because they live longer and oblige the taxpayer to deal with the cost of “lingering diseases of old age like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s”.

That’s according to the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and Environment, which found that while “a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 ($417,000) over their lifetime”, a smoker clocks up just £165,000 ($326,000) and the obese run up an average £187,000 ($371,000) bill.

As the headline says, “Healthy? You’re a burden on the state.”