Coffin Nails Hailed: ‘Cut Health Costs’

MONTREAL — Smoking may be bad for your health but it aids the economy because it kills people before they become a health-care burden, says Canada’s largest tobacco manufacturer.

“A person who dies of lung cancer at age 70 will not be hospitalized later with another disease,” said a study commissioned by Imperial Tobacco touting the benefits of early death in smokers on the health-care system.

” . . . Anti-smoking groups rarely consider the reduction in health costs resulting from the premature death of certain smokers; and yet, this calculation must be made in order to avoid serious error,” said the study, written by Montreal economist Jean-Pierre Vidal.

Vidal’s report sparked protests Friday from anti-smokers.

“The idea that life has no value is incredibly offensive,” said David Sweanor, senior legal counsel for the Non-Smokers’ Rights Assn. lobbying group. “It is terribly offensive from a human standpoint. It misses what human life is really about.”