The CDC confirms that the tobacco industry is responsible for the deaths of 480,000 Americans every year, as compared to COVID-19 deaths found by the CDC of only 303,823. (Courtesy of Willgard Krause from Pixabay )
The CDC confirms that the tobacco industry is responsible for the deaths of 480,000 Americans every year, as compared to COVID-19 deaths found by the CDC of only 303,823 in 2020. (Courtesy of Willgard Krause from Pixabay )

In the worst pandemic in more than a century, COVID-19 killed less than 350,000 Americans.

Quietly however, the tobacco industry killed more Americans in the same year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that the tobacco industry is responsible for the deaths of 480,000 Americans every year.

Of those deaths 41,000 Americans die of secondhand smoke. The COVID-19 deaths than the CDC they found only 303,823.

We have made major disruptions to the economy to battle COVID-19 and many are asking if the tobacco industry should be allowed to exist.

Joshua M. Pearce is an academic engineer at Michigan Tech known for his work on protocrystallinity, photovoltaic technology, open-source-appropriate technology, and open-source hardware including RepRap 3D printers.
Joshua M. Pearce Ph.D., is an academic engineer at Michigan Tech known for his work on protocrystallinity, photovoltaic technology, open-source-appropriate technology, and open-source hardware including RepRap 3D printers.

Dr. Joshua Pearce, a professor in the Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab, developed a metric in a recent study to determine when an industry warrants an industry-wide corporate death penalty.

To set an ideal metric, Pearce used three assumptions:

1. Everyone has the right to life;
2. Everyone has the right to work;
3. Human law should give corporations the right to exist if they benefit humanity.

“If we know that life trumps employment because you have to be alive to work, then for a company or industry to exist it must employ more people than it kills in a year,” Pearce said.

“What this paper has done is find the theoretical bare minimum for an industry existence.”

The tobacco industry employs 124,342 people based on data from the North American Industry Classification System, but is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Pearce says, “After running the numbers the results are shocking. Every tobacco industry job in the U.S. demands literally sacrificing about four American lives every year. ”

There is no ‘COVID-19 industry’ and America is doing its best to protect as many American lives as possible. Yet the tobacco industry is responsible for more deaths than COVID-19 in 2020 by a wide margin.

The results of the study appear to clearly warrant a tobacco industry-wide corporate death penalty in the U.S., according to Pearce.

(Sharon started smoking at 13. In her late 30s, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. She was a busy mom with two children. She made their lunches, took them to school, and was active in parent-teacher groups. In this video, Sharon talks about finding a lump in her neck and being told it was cancer. Doctors treated the tumor with chemotherapy and radiation, and tried to save her voice box. But when her symptoms returned a year later, her doctor said removing her voice box was the next step. Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and YouTube.)

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.

  • Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year.2 If the pattern of smoking all over the globe doesn’t change, more than 8 million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030.3

  • Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.1

  • On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.4

  • If smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youth, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 years of age are expected to die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. This represents about one in every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger who are alive today.1

Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Costs and Expenditures

Smoking costs the United States billions of dollars each year.1,7

  • Total economic cost of smoking is more than $300 billion a year, including

    • Nearly $170 billion in direct medical care for adults6

    • More than $156 billion in lost productivity due to premature death and exposure to secondhand smoke1

The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on cigarette and smokeless tobacco advertising and promotions.6,7

  • $9.06 billion was spent on advertising and promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco combined—about $25 million every day, and more than $1 million every hour.

  • Price discounts to retailers account for 73.3% of all cigarette marketing (about $6.16 billion). These are discounts paid in order to reduce the price of cigarettes to consumers

State spending on tobacco prevention and control does not meet CDC-recommended levels.1,8,9

  • States have billions of dollars from the taxes they put on tobacco products and money from lawsuits against cigarette companies that they can use to prevent smoking and help smokers quit. Right now, though, the states only use a very small amount of that money to prevent and control tobacco use.

  • In fiscal year 2020, states will collect $27.2 billion from tobacco taxes and settlements in court, but will only spend $740 million in the same year. That’s only 2.7% of it spent on programs that can stop young people from becoming smokers and help current smokers quit.8

  • Right now, not a single state out of 50 funds these programs at CDC’s “recommended” level. Only three states (Alaska, California, and Maine) give even 70% of the full recommended amount. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia spend less than 20 percent of what the CDC recommends. One state, Connecticut, gives no state funds for prevention and quit-smoking programs.8

  • Spending 12% (about $3.3 billion) of the $27.2 billion would fund every state’s tobacco control program at CDC-recommended levels.8

(No matter how old you are or how long you’ve been smoking, quitting is the most important thing you can do to improve your health. Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW to get started. cdc.gov/quit. Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and YouTube.)

Cigarette Smoking in the US

Percentage of U.S. adults aged 18 years or older who were current cigarette smokers in 2018:10

  • 13.7% of all adults (34.2 million people): 15.6% of men, 12.0% of women

    • About 19 of every 100 people with mixed-race heritage (non-Hispanic) (19.1%)

    • Nearly 23 of every 100 non-Hispanic American Indians/Alaska Natives (22.6%)

    • Nearly 15 of every 100 non-Hispanic Blacks (14.6%)

    • About 15 of every 100 non-Hispanic Whites (15.0%)

    • Nearly 10 of every 100 Hispanics (9.8%)

    • About 7 of every 100 non-Hispanic Asians (7.1%)

Note: Current cigarette smokers are defined as people who reported smoking at least 100 cigarettes during their lifetime and who, at the time they participated in a survey about this topic, reported smoking every day or some days.

Thousands of young people start smoking cigarettes every day.11

  • Each day, about 2000 people younger than 18 years smoke their first cigarette.

  • Each day, over 300 people younger than 18 years become daily cigarette smokers.

Many adult cigarette smokers want to quit smoking.

  • In 2015, nearly 7 in 10 (68.0%) adult cigarette smokers wanted to stop smoking.

  • In 2018, more than half (55.1%) adult cigarette smokers had made a quit attempt in the past year.

  • In 2018, more than 7 out of every 100 (7.5%) people who tried to quit succeeded.

  • From 2012–2018, the Tips From Former Smokers® campaign has motivated approximately one million tobacco smokers to quit for good.13

Note: “Made a quit attempt” refers to smokers who reported that they stopped smoking for more than 1 day in the past 12 months because they were trying to quit smoking. See CDC’s Smoking Cessation: Fast Facts fact sheet for more information.

References

  1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014 [accessed 2018 Feb 22].
  2. World Health Organization. WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2017external icon. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2017 [accessed 2019 Jan 31].
  3. World Health Organization. WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2011external icon. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2011 [accessed 2018 Feb 22].
  4. Jha P, Ramasundarahettige C, Landsman V, et al. 21st Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United Statesexternal icon. New England Journal of Medicine 2013;368:341–50 [accessed 2018 Feb 22].
  5. Xu X, Bishop EE, Kennedy SM, Simpson SA, Pechacek TF. Annual Healthcare Spending Attributable to Cigarette Smoking: An Updateexternal icon. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 2014;48(3):326–333 [accessed 2018 Feb 22].
  6. Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report for 2018 pdf icon[PDF-281 KB]external icon. Washington: Federal Trade Commission, 2019 [accessed 2020 Apr 16].
  7. Federal Trade Commission. Federal Trade Commission Smokeless Tobacco Report for 2018 [PDF-578 KB]external icon. Washington: Federal Trade Commission, 2019 [accessed 2020 Apr 16].
  8. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Broken Promises to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 20 Years Laterexternal icon. Washington: Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, 2018 [accessed 2019 Jan 7].
  9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs–2014. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014 [accessed 2018 Feb 22].
  10. Creamer MR, Wang TW, Babb S, et al. Tobacco Product Use and Cessation Indicators Among Adults – United States, 2018. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2019;68(45);1013–1019 [accessed 2019 Nov 18].
  11. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Detailed Tablesexternal icon. [accessed 2019 Jan 31].
  12. Babb S, Malarcher A, Schauer G, et al. Quitting Smoking Among Adults – United States, 2000-2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2017;65(52);1457–1464. [accessed 2019 Nov 11].
  13. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tips Impact and Results [last updated 2020 Mar 23; accessed 2020 Apr 15].

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