Mark Oates, the director of e-cigarette consumer protection organization in the UK, suggested that promoting e-cigarettes could potentially ease the financial burden on the National Health Service (NHS).
According to Mark Oates, families are being plunged into a financial abyss amid a worsening cost of living crisis, and there seems to be no end in sight.
Financial commentator Martin Lewis has predicted that the upper limit for energy prices could increase to £3,700 (approximately RMB 31,000) in April of next year. Meanwhile, the cost of food continues to rise at an unprecedented speed.
However, when UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attempts to lead the country out of the Trellis catastrophic economic crisis, he has a unique opportunity to not only save millions of people money but also significantly alleviate the NHS's financial burden. The NHS is currently facing widespread nurse strikes," commented Oates.
According to Otz's commentary, "The review commissioned by the British government is clear that electronic cigarettes should be promoted at all levels to save lives, while ensuring that young people and non-smokers do not start using them. This is because everyone's health source, from Cancer Research UK to the NHS, now acknowledges that electronic cigarettes are much safer than smoking.
Therefore, if the conclusion of the review is that electronic cigarettes are good, it would make sense to develop a strategy on how to promote it to people. This could save thousands of pounds for many households each year, save millions of pounds for the NHS, and prevent countless preventable cancer deaths.
The numbers related to smoking are startling: before the prevalence of smoking, the NHS had an annual operational cost of 192 billion pounds (approximately RMB 632.97 billion). According to data from the UK government, smoking alone costs the NHS 2.5 billion pounds (approximately RMB 21.26 billion) each year, and has a total economic cost of 14.7 billion pounds (approximately RMB 125 billion).
The most significant preventable cause of death in the UK is still smoking, and a prudent approach to smoking has yet to be discovered. In England alone, there are 78,000 smoking-related deaths annually, equating to 200 deaths each day.
Apart from public health concerns, the cost of smoking within households is also a pressing issue.
According to data from Cancer Research UK, smokers spend an average of £475 (approximately US$616) on cigarettes every three months or £1,900 (approximately US$2,465) per year. In contrast, e-cigarette users spend £180 (approximately US$234) every three months or £720 (approximately US$936) per year, which is more than 2.5 times less than the amount spent by smokers on cigarettes.
Oates continued, "Additionally, we know that smoking rates are significantly higher among those with the lowest incomes. A study conducted in England revealed that if the cost of smoking was returned to the 1.4 million households living in poverty, 418,127 of them would no longer be living below the poverty line.
As a result, smoking will cause severe damage to the economy of the NHS and those who are addicted. The harsh reality is that this winter will be a struggle for many people.
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