Study: Smoking costs Nevada $2.6 billion annually
By Sean Collins Walsh, Reno Gazette-Journal
Warning: Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and an annual $2.6 billion drain on the Nevada economy.
At least, that’s what researchers found in a recent American Lung Association study, “Smoking Cessation: the Economic Benefits.”
Health economics and administration experts at Penn State University performed cost-benefit analyses for government spending on smoking cessation, programs aimed at getting people to quit, according to a Tuesday news release.
They came to the $2.6 billion total for Nevada by adding the cost of direct medical expenditures on smoking-related disease, more than $860 million; workplace productivity loss from smoking, more than $685 million; and the cost of many smokers’ premature deaths, more than $1 billion.
Smoking costs the entire country $301 billion per year, according to the same calculation.