Against smokers

Right, back to business. We all have our prejudices. One of mine (and there are many) is that I don’t like smokers, so I’m not supporting this bunch.

Leave aside the health effects of passive smoking. Leave aside too the fact that smokers stink, though this is an externality they selfishly impose on the rest of us; I’m amazed they ever get near enough to a woman to find out that they’re impotent.

My objection is that smokers lack self-discipline and, relatedly, have shorter time horizons than others. I just happen to find these unattractive character traits.

There is evidence to support my distaste. In this book Theodore Dalrymple says:

Virtually all English criminals are smokers, a fact that sociologists have unaccountably overlooked.

Of course, this doesn’t mean all smokers are criminals. But the connection is suggestive, and it has a logical basis. Smokers put heavy weight on near-term satisfaction relative to the risk of long-term costs. So too do criminals. One would expect, therefore, a correlation between criminals and smoking.

More rigorous research shows that smokers’ tastes are indeed different from non-smokers. This paper (pdf) shows that smokers disproportionately choose professions with flatter wage profiles – ones that pay high wages earlier. This supports the view that smokers have shorter time horizons. Peculiarly, dancers are especially likely to be smokers.

And this paper shows that smokers are more tolerant of risks than non-smokers. This would be no bad thing, were it not that for the fact that smokers seem to be more careless than non-smokers, and so have more accidents.

Smokers, then, are different from the rest of us, in ways I personally find unattractive. And employers seem to share my distaste. Smokers earn less than non-smokers, even controlling for other things that affect wages.

Now, my distaste for smokers is just that, a distaste, although it's tempered by the possibility that people choose to smoke because they have lower life expectancy anyway (pdf).

Of course, tastes are not sufficient justification for bans; it’s the stink they make that justifies those. A bit of me knows that I should defend the liberties even (especially?) of groups I dislike. But I just can’t work up the energy to do so in this case.

Comments

[dearieme]

Cigarette smokers are vile, aren't they? But a vague memory instructs me that smoking a pipe is a much less dangerous habit, and of course smells far better. So if we were all being rational, we'd exempt pipe-smokers from our jihad, wouldn't we? The fact that we don't suggests that we are just a bunch of nasty puritans, doesn't it?

[Michael Stastny]

>>My objection is that
>>smokers lack self-discipline

Unfortunately, many non-smokers never lack self-discipline. That makes them unbearable.

[dander]

Don't want to spoil the party here, but are smokers overrepresented in lots of other categories other than criminals and dancers? what about musicians, painters, architects, writers, directors? could there be something to be said for short-termism?

[Steve]

Smokers are usually litter louts too. The dropped fag-end and the packet thrown out of the car window. I bet they've all done it.

[Andrew Duffin]

Smoking a pipe smells far better?

Blimey.

You obviously never sat next to my old housemaster at breakfast.

[Angry Economist]

Economically its the fact that smokers free-ride too much. They pollute the lives of non-smokers without compensating them. They pay their taxes on their fags, but none of those can compensate for the fact that I might have caught a life threatening disease from someone smoking cigarettes.

As an ex-smoker I sympathise with the smoker's need to smoke. But it is an addiction full stop. The pleasure is gained from the physical reaction to feeding the addiction to nicotine and all those other chemicals. And the addiction is brutal. I still feel pangs for nicotine. But I can get over them. The worst mistake I made w.r.t. cigarettes was starting smoking in the first place.

Another beef I have is why doesn't the government incentivise the market to get rid of smoking premises etc? the planning authorities should insist that 50% of licensed premises are non-smoking. Licenses could be cheaper for non-smoking premises, loads more expensive for smoking premises.

Anyone who argues in favour of smoking - have they ever seen anyone die of lung cancer? I have and its a bloody desperate, unpleasant way to die.