England to Ban smoking

posted at 09:30:47
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
News

The UK Government has almost (finally) passed its law on banning smoking in all Pubs and Clubs in England by the summer of 2007.

As a smoker this obviously affects me but to be honest I'm not too bothered about it. I know for one that I'll cut down considerably when they bring the ban in. It's also kinder to my friends and to the staff that have to work in these smokey conditions.

The Government reckon that 600,000 people will quit as a direct result of the ban and this got me thinking a bit (yes, dangerous I know!) on how much money is actually put into the government coffers by our "anti-social" behaviour.

I've done a quick bit of research and a bit of working out. You'll have to excuse my maths - I haven't done this since I was at University!

Based on a population of 59,000,000 there are 47,200,000 people over the age of 16 (legal smoking age in the UK)

Roughly 25% of these smoke so that gives us 11,800,000 (legal) smokers in the uk

If every one of these bought 1 packet of 20 cigarettes a day at 89% tax and an average cost of £4 a packet (I wish) that raises:

Per Day £42,008,000
Per Week £294,056,000
Per Year £15,290,912,000

Hmm. £15 billion a year, that's a lot of prescriptions. Mind you, the costs of the NHS is spiraling out of control. Their computer system is set to top a cost of £18 billion.

Mind you, we haven't taken in to account the 600,000 quitters:

£3.56 a day
£24.92 a week
£1295.84 a year based on 20 a day
x 600,000 quitters
£777,504,000 lost revenue

And that's a lot of computer equipment too.

I wonder where the extra government funding will come from... anyone feel a tax increase on the way?