Costs of Smoking

In Health Care Terms

In health care, tobacco use costs Canada billions of dollars each year. Health care costs related to smoking have increased steadily since 1966. In 2002, tobacco use accounted for $4.4 billion in direct health care costs and an additional $12.5 billion of indirect costs such as lost productivity, longer-term disability and premature death.

In The Workplace

A recent report sponsored by the BC Healthy Living Alliance found that one employee who smokes can cost a business more than $3300 per year through absenteeism, lower productivity, higher accident rates, longer disability claims and other factors. The total provincial cost of employing workers who smoke was found to be $661 million per annum.