Smoke-filled rooms : a postmortem on the tobacco deal / W. Kip Viscusi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Viscusi, W. Kip.

Series:

Studies in law and economics (Chicago, Ill.)

Studies in law and economics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tobacco industry--Government policy--United States.

Tobacco industry.

Cigarette industry--United States.

Cigarette industry.

Cigarette smoke--Health aspects--United States.

Cigarette smoke.

Advertising--Cigarettes--Government policy--United States.

Advertising.

Tobacco industry--Law and legislation--United States.

Smoking--Law and legislation--United States.

Smoking.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (273 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The 1998 out-of-court settlements of litigation by the states against the cigarette industry totaled 43 billion, making it the largest payoff ever in our civil justice system. Two key questions drove the lawsuits and the attendant settlement: Do smokers understand the risks of smoking? And does smoking impose net financial costs on the states? With Smoke-Filled Rooms,W. Kip Viscusi provides unexpected answers to these questions, drawing on an impressive range of data on several topics central to the smoking policy debate. Based on surveys of smokers in the United States and Spain, for instance, he demonstrates that smokers actually overestimate the dangers of smoking, indicating that they are well aware of the risks involved in their choice to smoke. And while smoking does increase medical costs to the states, Viscusi finds that these costs are more than financially balanced by the premature mortality of smokers, which reduces their demands on state pension and health programs, so that, on average, smoking either pays for itself or generates revenues for the states. Viscusi's eye-opening assessment of the tobacco lawsuits also includes policy recommendations that could frame these debates in a more productive way, such as his suggestion that the FDA should develop a rating system for cigarettes and other tobacco products based on their relative safety, thus providing an incentive for tobacco manufacturers to compete among themselves to produce safer cigarettes. Viscusi's hard look at the facts of smoking and its costs runs against conventional thinking. But it is also necessary for an informed and realistic debate about the legal, financial, and social consequences of the tobacco lawsuits. People making 0,000 or more pay .08 percent of their income in cigarette taxes, but people with incomes of less than 0,000 pay 1.62 percenttwenty times as much. The maintenance crew at the Capitol will bear more of the "sin tax" levied on cigarettes than will members of Congress who voted to boost it. Cigarettes are not a financial drain to the U.S. In fact, they are self-financing, as a consequence of smokers' premature mortality. The general public estimates that 47 out of 100 smokers will die from lung cancer because they smoke. Smokers believe that 40 out of 100 will die of the disease. Scientists estimate the actual number of 100 smokers who will die from lung cancer to be between 7 and 13.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

I. Introduction

II. The Proposed Federal Settlement

III. The Settlement of the State Lawsuits

IV. The Financial Costs of Smoking to Society

V. The Financial Costs to the States and the Federal Government

VI. Environmental Tobacco Smoke

VII. Risk Beliefs and Addiction

VIII. Youth Smoking: Beyond Joe Camel

IX. Promoting Safer Cigarettes

X. Lessons from the Tobacco Deal

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-252) and index.

ISBN:

9786612537929

9781282537927

128253792X

9780226857480

0226857484

OCLC:

609650003