BC Gov now to cover nicotine patches and medication
 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...ches-free.html

Personally, everyone I know but one who smoked has quit. But if you haven't. Now it's gotten easier.

good for the gov't. The old argument was that smoking was a personal choice, thus if you wanted to quit, tax payers shouldn't carry your unhealthy burden.

good to hear

Tobacco should be taxed high enough to offset pussy-hand-holding programs like these and for future tobacco disease treatments.

Good to hear! I want a harder push towards preventative treatment vs. after-the-fact treatment!

And what a shitty arguement that was since they were paying their burden of treating their various forms of cancer.... which is 10000x way more expensive in the long run.

I agree. Personally I would like to see the taxes on cigarettes double to off set the cost of health care for smokers. But I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction.

Harm Reduction is, in general, the most effective way to reduce the use of any substance.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/smoking/cost.html

In Canada, between 63 and 79 per cent of the price of a package of cigarettes is tax.

Those are old numbers it's even higher now. That's a ton of money but the government does not spent it all on health care. Increasing taxes just increases the amount of counterfeiting and the government makes zero on that.

It is a great strategy to improve the health of British Columbians and reduce the financial toll on our health care system.

I wonder if we will ever see a fast food/junk food tax.

I know this has been and is still being tossed around in Victoria. I think this would be a good idea.

Alternately, when I was listening to the HST Round Table discussion, one of the suggestions was to expand the exemptions to HST (another is to reduce the provincial portion by 1% which is my favorite option). If they went with the expanded exemptions it would be nice to see this go to unprepared ingredients (flour, produce, sugar, milk, eggs, meat) but have processed ingredients still be subject to the tax. That would create a VERY real and tangible savings for making your own food rather then relying on sodium and fat laden processed and ready made solutions.

if you dont want to quit because you dont want to spend otherwise wasted money on gum or patches, then you'll never quit anyway.
that same money that one spent smoking would be used on patches/gum anyway (smoking is still more expensive).

government just fails to understand the mentality of a smoker.

This is good news to some ppl I guess. I should take advantage of this and try to quit...
But I think the satisfaction of quitting and not using patches holds a higher sense of fulfillment. I'm pretty damn proud of my friends that have quit.

I don't smoke, but I still think that it's positive thinking to know that the government is supporting you, rather than just continuing to tax any products you might buy to try to break the habit.

good stuff!

I don't think that's true at all. I think it sends a clear sign that smoking isn't tolerated. Personally I've noticed over the years with every further action against smokers more and more of my friends have quit (The biggest number of us when they stopped letting us smoke in clubs... which totally dates me doesn't it? :P )

That said, this program is entirely funded using a portion of the money off of cigarette taxes. So those of us non smokers aren't putting a dime into it which I think is even more awesome.

One of the things that I'm surprised they didn't mention in this article too is that MSP will now compensate GPs for talking to their patients about alcohol and smoking related issues, which is a really big deal. Previously there was no "code" or compensation for GPs addressing particularly alcohol issues. The reclassification of these addictions as a "medical problem" is also a big step in dealing with them in the long run (again, harm reduction is almost always the best approach towards dealing with addiction).

If my dad who has been a smoker for almost 40 years and a 3 pack a day guy for the last 20 can quit, anyone can quit. I agree with the cost of the patches being less then future healthcare costs so I'm OK with it. Like said above, more then half the price of a pack of cigs. is tax so it pays for itself anyway.

I know people who will never quit because they enjoy smoking.

I don't get it.

so they can afford smokes but not gum?

^there trying to encourage them to quit smoking. By making it free for them to try quitting, it only helps bc in the long run.

A lot of people also don't feel like it's worth trying because they don't think it will work. If it's free they're much more likely to give it a go.

Look like Johnson & Johnson will be the second biggest winners in this decision.

Well if your gonna get all political about it how about branding all gmo foods while your at it.

Decreased healthcare costs but increased pension costs and retirement obligations for people who live longer. I support smoking in reducing life expectancy for those living off the public purse.

If we do the math, cigarettes are about $11 a pack in BC
In other countries you can buy the exact same brands for less than $1 a pack
To bring it closer to home, at duty free it's $2.50 a pack
So the government takes $8.50 a pack
Say someone smokes a pack a day, for 365 days a year = $3,102.50, times 40 years = $124,000 and then the incidence of heavy smokers getting lung cancer is 1 in 5, so that means $620,000 for each person that gets lung cancer from smoking.

And I'm being generous here cause there's plenty of people that just smoke sometimes.

So does anybody here know how much an avg cancer treatment cost?
I've just been searching the internet but it seems to be usually about 30K per cancer patient, so where does the other $590,000 go?

Got to factor in hospital stay, different forms of cancer treatment, payment of onocologists and specialists, pre-patient care, post-patient care and the list goes on and on.

Since I failed you I should at least explain my position. Your viewpoint is only a few stone throws away from supporting euthanasia through reducing line expectancy by either cancer or other medical complications. I extremely against this! People seldom see the emotional tole this has on people who live with sick individuals, to see how people slowly fade away until they drown in their own lung fluids. I do not wish on anyone to know what it feels like to slowly drown day by day. To feel the constant pain and nausa of chemotherapy. To see how cancer has physically and emotionally drained and individual until they feel like it is easier to die then to live. This is why I am an strong supporter of anything that prevents any form of cancer.

... It actually costs a lot more then 620K to deal with some patients with lung cancer.

I think the 30K you're looking at might be out of pocket expenses for the patients. I had a family member go through chemo, the anti nausia drugs that you take so you're not debilitated after your treatments cost $500 A PILL, and MSP doesn't cover that (as apparently, retaining the ability to eat while your body is wasting away from cancer is "elective").

Furthermore, someone who is older but not pension aged, and afflicted with cancer is more likely to have to go onto perminent disability. And even further than that require very expensive medications probably for the whole of their life that are absorbed by MSP.

You may think about just the treatment (I found that 18 weeks of chemo was about 80K in 2009), but that doesn't include the costs of surgeries, doctors time, nurses time, and other medications.

Because so many of our costs here in Canada are soaked up by MSP we don't see the numbers tally up or appreciate that our 15 minute visit to a GP costs $65-$90... imagine for a moment what multiple visits to an oncologist cost + all their time to work on your case. Anyone who has gone to the private sector for medical assistance may have a better idea what this is worth.

And this is all looking at lung cancer alone not the plethora of other smoking related health and social issues.

Only lawyers print money faster then the health care system.

The BC government says that smoking costs the BC economy $2.3 BILLION dollars a year, $605 million of which is direct healthcare costs with about 6000 people in the province dying every year from smoking related causes.

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_rele...049-000518.htm