Anti-smoking measures in France reduce health spending, says OECD

The measures taken in France against smoking have an economic benefit that exceeds their cost, in particular because they will reduce health expenditure linked to the diseases caused by this addiction, researchers from the OECD estimated on Friday June 16. Between 2016 and 2020, this French fight represents “a great investment”said the head of research for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in public health.

The international organization has tried to evaluate these anti-smoking measures from an economic point of view, which include a sharp increase in the price of cigarettes, the obligation to remove all marketing elements from the packet, or annual campaigns to help weaning (the “tobacco-free months” every November). “The impact, both health and economic, that we can hope for (…) is positive and significant”summed up Francesca Colombo, who presented these results alongside the French public health agency.

Hundreds of millions of euros saved

The OECD researchers modeled the potential effect of these measures by taking into account several elements: to what extent were they followed by a decline in smoking in France? How many diseases can this drop prevent? What cost would these diseases have had for the health system? Tobacco consumption is indeed one of the main causes of illness and death in the country and in the world.

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But this consumption fell significantly in France at the end of the 2010s, after the implementation of the measures assessed, even if it remains much higher than in countries such as the United States. Its decline was also interrupted with the Covid-19 crisis. Despite this halt, OECD researchers believe that this series of measures should prevent a few million cases of disease by 2050 in France, for a financial gain of several hundred million euros per year.