Numbers Guy: Effects of Smokeless Tobacco Products Overblown

The Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” takes a look at the effects of smokeless tobacco.  Many supporters of a tobacco tax use the argument that it would provide public health benefits (though of course, the real motive is to fund ever increasing government spending), but the Numbers Guy notes most of these statistics are overblown:

Add up all the risks of smokeless tobacco, say supporters of its role in smoking prevention, and using smokeless products raises the risk of premature death by only 2% of the amount that taking up smoking does, according to Joel Nitzkin, chair of the tobacco control task force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians, an organization of about 200 public-health doctors.