I wrote this post in 2014 regarding smoking and find it relevant to today’s discussion about mortality in Covid-14. We accept smoking even though this generates a mortality rate that is on par with the death rates because of Covid-14, every year. In added, a very large proportion of our healthcare is spent on treating the consequences of smoking. Perhaps it’s time for a “corona”-debate about the consequences and costs of smoking? Smoking is also likely to be strongly associated with mortality due to Covid-14. Wrote an email to FHM about this and received a reply from Johan Carlsson who replied that they were looking at this.  You can read this on (Tankar och idéer om Coronapandemin).

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2014)

I’m amazed every time I see the warnings on the cigarette packets on the shelf in the grocery store. One of the warnings reads:

“Smoking seriously harms yourself and people around you.”

A warning of the harmfulness of smoking must be found on all cigarette packets sold in Sweden based on a law based on at EU directive. The 14 different warnings are the same in all EU countries. 

If, throughout the EU, the harmfulness of tobacco is so sure that a warning text such as the one above or ‘Smoking kills’ as one of the other texts states, one should reasonably immediately ban the product.

What amazes me is that these products are still on sale. The warnings say not “Smoking can harm…”, or “Smoking can kill”, here there are no doubts, this product is dangerous. It is also said that smoking harms people in the environment. This is even more serious. These products are sold everywhere, at all times of the day. 

In Sweden, we know that about 12,000 people die each year from smoking, in the world a total of about 4.9 million. Huge numbers. In addition, many children are not allowed to go on holiday or get good clothes because parents choose to spend their money on smoking instead of investing this money in their children. For all of us in Sweden, smoking costs about 30 billions Swedish krones (about 3,3 billions american dollar in december 2021) every year.

Isn’t it strange that tobacco can still be used in Sweden (or in the world at all) today in 2014? When its harmfulness is indisputable and the costs so high, it is irresponsible for the government not to immediately ban the product. I believe that the judgment in the future will be harsh on today’s decision-makers for not banning this product despite knowing about its harmfulness.