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.

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