amusedThis is my all time favorite smoking statistic.
Let's work with that a moment.
Now, most times, it takes me about three days to finish a pack of cigarettes... But let's assume a pack a day, since that's a quantitative phrase that anti-tobacco propagandists dearly love.
If each cigarette in a long-term habit costs you seven minutes of life (presumably taken at the end of said life - at least I know of no instance where the reverse is true) then our pack-a-day smoker loses two hours, twenty minutes a day. Sounds damning, doesn't it? The Cigarette Nazis are hoping that's as far as we get in our thinking, but let's keep going.
At that rate, we lose 35.46 days for every year of heavy smoking... A few days under a year of life for every decade of the habit. Supposing we start smoking a pack a day at five years of age, as the Cigarette Nazis seem sure we will if tobacco companies are allowed to advertise anywhere, we'll lose seven years by the time we're seventy five.
Now, me... I'm a white female, 38 years old. In theory, that gives me a statistical life expectancy of around 82. Seventy-five if I smoke a pack a day from age five. For my actual smoking habits, the cost lines up more around three years. You know what? Wrap it up, I'll take it. I enjoy smoking a cigarette every now and then... So yeah. I'll give you those last three years.
But what about second hand smoke? I suppose a person who spent all their waking hours in a heavily smoke-filled environment might inhale 10% as much smoke as a pack-a-day smoker... That's obviously being pretty liberal with the probabilities, but let's go with the heavier numbers for the sake of argument. Our theoretical - Hm. Who gets exposed to that kind of second hand smoke daily from 5 to 75? I don't know, maybe she's a bartender in a really cool day-care center. Well, she'll pay, baby... over the course of those seventy years, she'll lose eight months of her life. Makes ya cry, doesn't it? I hope she got tipped well.
Then again, if she's an average American, her first-hand exposure to donuts will cost her a lot more lifespan than her second-hand exposure to cigarette smoke. Statistically speaking, she's much more likely to pay through her first-hand exposure to oncoming traffic.
Do I 100% support the conclusions of this data? Well... I wouldn't go that far. But the fact remains that, if I follow this particular anti-smoking gem of wisdom, to the letter, I should expect to live to be 75 years old if I start smoking a pack a day at five years of age.
