Every month should be about quitting smoking and this month especially this is hitting the headlines as October is the month that the public health campaign, Stoptober runs. With the public focus being so keenly focused on quitting smoking we look at the cost of smoking, financially and in other ways.

What is Stoptober

We do have to take a minute here to reiterate just how brilliant the Stoptober campaign is. Run by Public Health England, the government group responsible for many public health campaigns and for the implementation of the Go Smoke Free legislation, this event helps many smokers quit each year. The focus of the month-long campaign is an en-masse stop smoking charge of sorts, with multiple sources of support and highlighting alternatives to smoking, from quitting outright to vaping.

The Actual Cost of Smoking

At the time of writing a generic brand of tobacco cigarettes (a twenty pack) costs around £9.00 if you are lucky. Some brands are slightly less and some brands cost a little more. If a smoker smoked twenty cigarettes a day that would equate to approximately £3285 a year. This is a significant sum of money to spend on setting fire to something and breathing in the chemical-laden smoke, particularly when the smoke is known to be toxic and to contribute to or cause a number of different health issues, including cancer, and of course being responsible for premature death.

Life Insurance for Smokers

One of the first questions an insurance company or broker will ask you is “Do you smoke” when looking for a life insurance policy. The answer to this question can have a significant effect on the amount of money that you are likely to spend on life insurance, as well as the maximum amount of benefit you may be entitled to. Even ex-smokers may pay a little more, however, the shorter the time you were a smoker and the longer you have been smoke free, the better a deal you may find. It is most definitely worth shopping around.

Other Costs

Asides from the cost of smoking on an individual’s health, there are other costs and factors to consider. We all know that smoking is bad for health however what people don’t always consider is the fact that there are other costs, such as the cost to the NHS. The NHS spend billions each year on treatments for smoking-related illnesses, on Stop Smoking clinics, on prescriptions and on inpatient hospital stays all related to smoking in one way or another.

Smoking is clearly a huge financial drain on NHS resources, and it stands to reason that some of this will be alleviated if fewer people smoke by either choosing to give up or by switching over to e cigarettes (something the Public Health England have advocated for).

Other costs of smoking include the environmental cost. Keep Britain Tidy report huge amounts of smoking-related litter in the UK, from carelessly discarded cigarette packets to cigarette butts. Cigarette butts do not decompose easily, litter is unsightly and of course, the cost of wildlife is beyond measure. In addition to this, WHO (the World Health Organisation) have classified the smoke produced by the burning of a tobacco cigarette as being toxic and potentially cancer-causing. This smoke being released into the air, not to mention the passive smoking issue, is bound to have a negative effect on the environment as a whole.

The Cost of Smoking: In Summary

It is clear that the cost of smoking extends far beyond the actual monetary cost to your budget and your bank balance. When you consider the cost to health, the environment, to the NHS and more, smoking seems like a worse idea than ever. Knowing all of this does not, however, make it automatically easier to quit smoking. Quitting is hard! Not only are you trying to walk away from a body being used to the nicotine and other chemicals found within cigarettes, but you are also trying to break the physical and social habits attached to smoking tobacco cigarettes. This is just one of the reasons that Public Health England are trying to push for e cigarettes and e liquids to be recognised as being medical devices for the purpose of smoking cessation.

Having released findings that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking PHE, alongside numerous other health-related agencies and charities, are keen to see GPs prescribed vaping (e cigarettes) to help people walk away from smoking. With vaping being cheaper, healthier, better for the environment and more, we can see why so many are choosing the vaping alternative.