It seems to me that the solution is to start taxing fast food...

That would cause a civil war!

I wonder if it's possible to posit that there is an "addiction constant," and that the decrease in availability of cigarettes led to increased demand for addictive fast food and the consequent growth (pun intended) of the fast-food industry. So instead of a strictly physiological cause-and-effect relationship between these statistics, you see something psycho-socio-economic: a market demand leads to a public health crisis leads to a measure of prohibition leads to redirected demand leads to new industry growth leads to a new health crisis leading to (at least in the comment from Marc, above) a move toward a measure of prohibition.

I suspect that the negative effects of obesity are less severe and less immediate and less destructive of quality of life than those caused by smoking. I either case, reducing addiction -- an an individual and societal level -- would help solve both problems.

Sounds like something out of Freakonomics.

The author (as I've just discovered) also has a pretty cool blog.

Clive, I'd love to see that math too! heh.

As a smoker, I gotta say I'm not in favor of sin taxation, but then, I'm also not into seat belts, helmets, etc. I figure you gotta let people Darwin their way out of this world if they want to, or, as someone once said: "you gotta find what you love and let it kill you." Besides, all this obsessive interest in my continued health and welfare is obviously more about insurance premiums than any real desire on the part of legislators to have me, personally, around, right?

I suppose in the case of cigarettes there's the second hand smoke issue, but what are the odds I'll kill anyone else if I ever go flying through my windshield in a wreck? I guess they'd go up a bit if I was heavier...

The biggest reason I keep smoking is because it's the only herbal remedy for ADHD that allows me some control over my racing brain without just turning the darn thing off entirely the way serotonin uptake inhibitors do. The fact that I could eat 5 pounds of beef a day without gaining any weight is just kind of a bonus.

I'm also 100% convinced that the health drawbacks of smoking are cancelled out by the excellent stress management they provide. Stress kills, eh? So for a thrill seeker like me, it may actually be that cigarettes are *healthy*. I'm still trying to find a doctor that will corroborate that in print...

The negative health effects of smoking are vastly more than the negative effects of obesity, and that ratio is still fairly small (1:5), so don't get any funny ideas about this saying that smoking is a good thing.

john,

I completely understand about the ADHD thing. There is actually strong behavioral and neuroimaging evidence that suggests that smoking not only helps people focus if they're hyperactive (as all good stimulants do) but nicotine also helps normal people filter out unwanted information. It acts as an attentional filter.

Apparently, there's also some evidence to suggest that it prevents Alzheimer's. That is, if you don't die of cancer at a young age.

All of this is of course controversial, both scientifically and politically. But, take this obesity thing into account, and the evidence is mounting that maybe, MAYBE, there is some grand health benefit to the overall health loss.

All in all, smoking is a bit of a gamble, no matter how much the enjoyment or the potential health 'benefits'. Because it seems that getting cancer from smoking inovlves some unknown variables (genetics, random chance, etc).

I'll take my chances with moderate pipe/cigar smoking, and leave my ADHD to run wild.

braine, I like that analysis: There's a discrete amount of addictive behavior in the American public, and if we can't satiate it on cigarettes, we'll satiate it on McDonald's!

Steve and John, yeah, I'm generally super-glad I never started smoking; if I did, I would probably smoke three packs a day. There'd be stopping me. But I do sometimes wonder whether I'd enjoy the enhanced mental-concentration provided by a cigarette. During the non-winter months, I do smoke the occasional cigar -- two or three a month -- but never while working, in the classic smoking-to-concentrate fashion.

I wonder what it'll be like if and when we ever figure out genetic markers that determine whether you're predisposed to get lung cancer from smoking. As even health-officials admit, half of all hard-core, lifelong, pack-a-day smokers never get lung cancer -- or any serious lung-related health effects from smoking. No-one knows why. But if it were possible to know in advance that your odds were vanishingly low of ever dying from smoking, I bet a crapload of those who tested thusly would smoke up a storm.

Until then, of course, I think Bram's right -- the stats on cigarette-related deaths are scarier than those related to obesity.

I agree with Marc, that the obvious solution (through US government eyes) is to levy a fast food tax.

Whatever!

If the US government really gave a crap about our health, they'd subsidize healthy foods or give vouchers and coupons for the good-for-you groceries.

An ounce of prevention, right?

I doubt the US government cares so much about the nation's health as how they can make a buck or two as long as we're spending on addictive substances.

Incentivizing good behavior works way better than punishing bad behavior.

Addicts will do a hell of a lot to get their fix; a few cents extra per double cheeseburger isn't going to cure anyone. It just stands to make the government a whole lot richer at the people's expense.

Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't mean that one of them caused the other. Their simultaneous occurance may be coincidental or they may both share a common cause.

Steve E:

"nicotine also helps normal people filter out unwanted information. It acts as an attentional filter."

That sounds really interesting, but I'm not sure I follow it. What exactly is an attentional filter? Does it mean that people who smoke are able to tune out anything they disagree with (such as the massive propaganda that we're all dying almost as quickly as we are killing the people who breathe in our second-hand smoke)? Or is it something more akin to following the thread of a thought or discussion in a chaotic and loud environment?

I'd love to hear more about the research you are referencing... drop me a line from the contact form on my website if you have any cites you could share. www.johntunger.com/contact.html

thanks!

Oh yeah, the US actively subsidizes all sorts of garbage food, like refined sugar and feed corn. Rather than tax junk food, we could start by not subsidizing it.