Chapter 35 Economic issues

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Nationally, tobacco accounts for only 0.002 of the gross domestic product, or one-fifth

of one percent. North Carolina now produces more poultry and pork than tobacco. Q. If

tobacco is such a small part of the economy, how can the tobacco industry say that

millions of jobs depend on it? A. The tobacco industry seeks to perpetuate the myth

that any action to reduce the US smoking rates would result in economic devastation

of tobacco-growing regions. According to Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting, the

tobacco industry's estimate that there are 2.3 million jobs dependent on tobacco

relies on "a technique that cannot be used to determine whether a job is dependent on

tobacco." In fact, the most recent tobacco industry data show only 259,616 jobs

involved in the entire tobacco industry, including farming, manufacturing, warehousing

and wholesaling. Even among those jobs directly related to tobacco, relatively few

would be lost if US smoking rates declined. Reasons for this include: More than half of

all tobacco grown in the US and more than 30 percent of all cigarettes are exported.

That means that many of the 259,616 tobacco industry jobs would exist even if no one

in the US smoked. When people stop smoking, the money they would have spent on

cigarettes does not disappear from the economy, as the tobacco industry assumes. It

is redirected to other goods and services, creating new jobs in other sectors.

Economic studies have confirmed that in non-tobacco states, reduced smoking

actually increases the number of jobs available.

Quote from Supporting FDA: Fact Sheet #5, August 7, 1995 (Advocacy Institute)

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