Big in Japan

When reading the big three national broadsheets you will very often read condemnation of smokers and their habit based on oft-repeated propaganda.

So it is refreshing when even one of our harried 1.3 million smokers actually bites back. Even stranger too when it actually gets printed, though the editor of the Irish Times did tell me that his team often printed opinions that they themselves vehemently opposed.

So here, last Saturday, 21st of July in the year of Our Lord, was a rare gem from their pages:

Smokers’ health care

Sir, – If, as is often reported, smokers die 15 years early at the average age of 72, then each smoker is actually saving the state, €163,000 in pensions (at €10,868 per annum x 15), in addition to the high cost of long term healthcare for the “expensive” years from 75 to 85.
Based on these maths, one might expect our indebted HSE to encourage smokers. But then, my maths are probably wrong, because Japan has the highest life expectancy, yet they are the fourth highest smokers.

Yours, etc,


EOGHAN MAGOWAN,

Carrig Court,

Blackrock,

Co Dublin.

Good man yourself Eoghan!