Ask Dr Gary: Tobacco is biggest killler of all  Smoking kills
more than alcohol. Smoking kills more than alcohol.  Recently I
came across an article describing alcohol abuse as "New
Zealand's most widespread" drug problem. In the same paper,
another article said the same thing about cigarettes. Which one
is the bigger health problem? And what about "P", or synthetic
marijuana? Or the increasing abuse of prescription painkillers?
They're all generating scary headlines, but what are the facts?
I looked at government health statistics and medical articles
and here's what I found. The numbers vary depending on the
source, but the general themes are consistent: alcohol kills
about 1000 people a year in New Zealand, mostly by contributing
to fatal car crashes.  Smoking kills five times more people each
year than alcohol, and hundreds of times more people a year than
illegal drugs.  Smoking takes an average of 10 years off your
lifespan, a massive societal problem given almost 20 per cent of
Kiwis smoke. The cost o