People give all kinds of reasons for why they started smoking， but none of them are good.

While some claim that youre actually saving our overburdened healthcare system money in the long run by smoking because it reduces life expectancy1， its nowhere near a watertight2 argument.

First of all， youre certainly not doing your family and friends a favor by deliberately3 lowering your life expectancy. In fact， your family will have to absorb4 the losses incurred5 when you miss work due to smoking-related illnesses. Second， there is a lot of debate over the best way to measure the economic costs of smoking.

Every study is based on different assumptions6， and uses different data and methods. For example， should you measure the cost of smoking by looking at the cost of treating major illnesses like lung cancer and heart disease， or should you also measure the cost of less serious illnesses？ Should you take into account the fact that people who live longer also pay more taxes and insurance premiums？ Should you look at the overall cost to the health care system， or at the cost per individual？

Anyway， no matter how you calculate them， the economic costs of smoking are inconsequential7 when compared to smokings real price： smoking caused by the deaths of over 400，000 people each year and the illnesses of several million.

人們總是為開始抽煙找各種理由，但是沒有一種是好的。

有這樣一種言論，抽煙縮短了預(yù)期壽命，從長遠(yuǎn)利益來說，是在為我們不堪重負(fù)的醫(yī)療醫(yī)療系統(tǒng)節(jié)約資金，但嚴(yán)格來說，這個觀點是完全站不住腳的。

首先，刻意降低你的預(yù)期壽命，并不是在幫你家人和朋友的忙。事實上，當(dāng)你由于患上了抽煙引發(fā)的疾病而失去工作時，你的家人便不得不承受由此造成的損失。其二，關(guān)于測量吸煙的經(jīng)濟成本的最佳方法還存在很多爭議。

各項研究都基于不同的假設(shè)，而且使用了不同的數(shù)據(jù)和方法。例如，是否應(yīng)該通過估量治療如肺癌、心臟病等重大疾病的成本來計算抽煙的成本呢？還是說是通過估量不那么嚴(yán)重的疾病的成本來計算抽煙的成本呢？你考慮到了活得更加長久的人同時也需要支付更多的稅費和保險的事實了嗎？你是該考慮醫(yī)療系統(tǒng)的總成本，還是每個人的成本呢？

總之，不管你怎樣計算，與抽煙實際代價相比，它的經(jīng)濟成本便微不足道了。抽煙釀成了每年40萬人的死亡以及數(shù)百萬人患病的悲劇。