Le prix des cigarettes

J'ai envie de mettre en relation deux articles que j'ai lu récemment.

D'abord, le gouvernement du Québec hausse les taxes sur le tabac.

Ensuite, cet article pris sur le blogue du Harvard Business Review. Voici le passage que je trouve important :

The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) has estimated that the cost of smoking (estimated cost of smoking-related medical expenses and loss of productivity) exceeds $167 billion annually. The CDC has also estimated that 326 billion cigarettes (combustible tobacco, to be more precise) went up in smoke in 2011. In other words, every cigarette consumed costs the nation about 50 cents; every pack, $10.

Put another way, while the smoker paid approximately $5 a pack up front, there was also an additional $10 secret surcharge — the cost of which is born by all of us (such as taxpayers, anyone who buys health insurance, even private companies who suffer from lower productivity as a result). It is as if we are telling the smoker, "I know you can't afford to pay $15 for a pack. So we will give you $10 so you can afford to smoke." We are not this generous even with people who don't have one square meal a day.

Si j'interprète comme il faut, au Québec, 200 cigarettes coûtent autour de 80$. (Donc près de 8$ le paquet de 20 cigarettes?)

L'homme a un tel besoin d'auto-destruction. J'arrête.