How Much Would Smokers Pay For A Pack?
I quit smoking (had smoked since high school in the early/mid 70s) in about 81-82 … and cigs were just reaching over a $1/pack (if I recall correctly) … and I refused to pay that much then. While I now can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke , I will say smokers are some of the most discriminated against people in our country today …
Any resident smokers here … and what is your price/pack of cigarettes before you would give them up?
The $20 Pack -
Why smokers are happier when cigarettes cost more.
By Tim Harford - SLATE:
Would smokers prefer that cigarettes be expensive? Certainly, higher cigarette prices would make smokers healthier. There is plenty of evidence that smoking is very bad for you, and almost as much evidence that people smoke fewer cigarettes if they are expensive. But “healthy smokers” are not the same thing as happy smokers.
So, do high cigarette prices make smokers happier? If smokers are rational, they don’t. But if smokers are wracked by temptation and are trying unsuccessfully to quit, then higher prices might make them happier by encouraging them to smoke less or even to stop entirely.
This turns out to be a controversial point for economists, surely members of the only profession that could argue about whether smoking is rational. The “rational addiction” theory was put forward by the celebrated pair Kevin Murphy and Nobel laureate Gary Becker. They argue that people weigh the health risks of smoking, the possible social and psychological benefits, and the fact that it is habit-forming before deciding whether to light up.
That is not as absurd as it sounds. Even smokers know that their habit is dangerous; in fact, economist Kip Viscusi established that smokers overestimate the risks. And there is nothing necessarily irrational about deciding to embark on a course of action that many find enjoyable but that is painful to reverse. Otherwise, marriage would be irrational too. Addictive or not, the question is whether, for some people, the benefits might reasonably outweigh the costs.
A second possibility is that, rather than acting rationally, smokers are helpless puppets who will pay any price for a smoke. If so, expensive cigarettes are bad news for them; making them poorer without encouraging them to quit. But that possibility doesn’t fit the facts: We know that smokers respond to price signals by smoking less. They also smoke less if prices are expected to rise at some later stage. This implies that smokers both think about the future and recognize their own addiction, because a self-diagnosed addict who expects prices to rise might try to begin the difficult process of quitting before the habit becomes expensive.
A third possibility is that smokers are neither puppets nor ultrarational robots, but simply creatures of flesh and blood. They recognize the risks and would like to quit but keep valuing the short-term bliss of the nicotine hit over the longer-term benefits of kicking the habit. For smokers who fit this description, expensive cigarettes can indeed be a blessing by encouraging them to cut down or quit. Rational and temptation-wracked smokers behave in similar ways, smoking less if prices rise. They just feel differently about price hikes in the cigarette market.
One way to resolve the debate is to ask smokers how they feel. Six years ago, economists Jonathan Gruber and Sendhil Mullainathan did the next best thing, looking at two large sets of data on overall happiness, one covering Canada and one the United States. By comparing what happened to happiness in U.S. states and Canadian provinces where cigarette taxes rose, they were able to take an educated guess at whether high prices made smokers more or less cheerful. They had to make some heroic assumptions, but the results did point in the direction of the temptation model: Where cigarette taxes rise, “potential smokers”—the people whose age, class, income, and domestic circumstances suggest that they are likely to smoke—are happier. So when the tobacco industry raises prices, at least it may be spreading a little cheer.
Pat Dollard … Smokin’ Hot Fearless Leader … heh!
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
If you can't handle using your real email address, don't bother posting a comment.
I roll my own cigarettes.
$18.00 for 1 lb. of tobacco
$12.00 for 4 boxes of cigarette tubes (with filters)
That’s $30 for 800 cigs (40 packs or 4 cartons).
After taxes, I pay approximately .80 per pack.
Rolling cigs is a huge pain, but it beats paying over 50 bucks per carton.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:03 pmWOW!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:19 pmI rolled my own for a while. didnt last too long, but i have a kick ass rolling machine that does all the work for me. i just kinda had it sitting around
May 19th, 2008 at 5:25 pmCigarettes are still $1.50/ $2.00 a pack where I live,
May 19th, 2008 at 5:50 pmthe “wild west” “isle of misfits”, BEAUTIFUL St.Croix USVI!!!!! (and a 5th of rum is 5 bucks)
Now you’re just being cruel.
Seriously, major brands like I used to smoke are from $25 a carton to $45 for my favorites(Lucky Strike non-filter). Right now I am smoking the most embarassing cigs I’ve ever had but they cost less that $14 a carton and dont taste like flavored crap. They are made in Armenia and are called, get this….”Tough Guy” cigarettes. Always fun to pull out in a bar full of raging college kids…..but I control the beer so they have to be nice to me!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pmHere in BC, Canada, most brands are ~$9/pack. The cheapo brands can be had for as low as $6. So it costs in the region of $2,000/yr to smoke.
And I remember swearing off for a while when they reached $1/pack, too. Many decades ago!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:06 pmIf my memory serves me correctly …
Your Canadian cigarettes come less in a pack and are skinny (compared to US Brands) …
We vaca-ed in Canada one summer and became friendly with a family from the area where we were. They would tell us about all the taxes on this and that and how they would cross over into NY for better this and that … and cigarettes (at the time) used to be one of those things they’d come over and get the limit on.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:32 pm6$ for a pack of Red’s up here in Maine. They tax roll your own supplies up here too thou, so even those are comparable.
I quit in August of 2003 when it hit 4$ a pack.
Land of the Free… Less you want to smoke anyway.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:59 pmIn Australia, we pay between $10 ($AUS) and $15 ($AUS) a pack. Everyone complains, but keeps smoking. Our government would go broke if we all quit,(ie taxed to hell) and they know it.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:54 pmI also roll my cigarets : I pay for a 50 gr pot 14 €, plus 1,10 € for the paper
In Luxemburg, it just cost half of that price for 100 gr
So, whenever I get in touch with my elder son, I get a reserve of cheaper tobacco
May 20th, 2008 at 3:52 amI pay aroun $3.75 for Mavericks, about the same flavor of Marlboro, and 2 bucks a pack cheaper. I really emjoy smoking, probably part of the addiction i guess. I have tried to quit soo many times, started wehn I was 15 or 16. the longest time I was able to quit was USMC basic, that was a long 16 weeks back then, every time the Senior DI lit up in front of us, I started jonesing. Wish I had never bought that first pack about 20 minutes after graduation… during active duty I smoked 2-3 packs a day.
I now smoke 4 - 6 cigarettes a day, it feeds the addiction, my doctor who happens to be former AF, said that at that low rate, it would be more stressful to quit that to keep smoking, but he regularly encourages me to quit for good. I keep working on it.
I have NEVER smoked in fornt of my son, he wants to do EVERYTHING daddy does, don’t want to encourage him on a bad habit. I never smoke in the house, never have since my wife found out she had asthma in addition to her allergies, and she quit smoking. I do not smoke in the car either.
My parents are both smokers, have been since I can remember. Mom rarely smokes, only when she is really stressed out about something, and then only a couple a day. Dad has cut back, his favorite, Lucky Strikes non-filter. He now rolls his own, has done so on and off for years, the cost for him to smoke Luckies would be over 50 bucks a carton, home rolled about 12 bucks. They are both retired, thankfully they have pretty good income, they could smoke more of they wnated, they have finally decided it is time to quit, so they can be around longer for the grand kids.
My kid brother smokes as well, and my older one used to smoke, he was forced to quit when he married his wife. Getting him to quit and the tow neices are the only good from that marriage… another story there…
Anyway, price per pack to get me to quit? I may never quit, but you can be sure that as the taxes have gone up in Ohio, I smoke less. Just wait until myslef and millions of others finally do quit, where will the government get the missing tax revenue? Yeah, they find something else to raise taxes on, that mroe people use. Maybe that step will be to start taxes food items.
Hell, they may really go green, and make Cheryl Crow happy by taxing toilet paper by the roll…
May 20th, 2008 at 4:37 am