So why would anyone still smoke.

So I was in the store the other day behind a lady who was buying a carton of cigarettes, they were over 50 bucks a carton. I quit smoking 2 years ago and I am so glad I did, they were about 30 bucks a carton then. That made me curious, how much of that was taxes and how much did it cost to make the things. I know there was a recent 62 cent per pack federal tax placed on them and on the heels of that Florida legislature is planning an increase of the state sales tax by another $1-a-pack. They say this will cause at least a quarter of the cigarettes smoked in Florida will be smuggled in, compared to about 6 percent today. Funny we are using the word smuggle when we are talking about a legal product. But it is so easy to demonize the smokers, creating all that second hand smoke, costing all that money to care for them because of smoking related illnesses. That assumption is somewhat suspect in my opinion, we have been feed that story but how true is it.

50 bucks a carton, I am still struggling with the reality of that. When I first went in the military we could get “sea stores” when we got outside the territorial waters of the United States, free from all taxes. I do not remember what the cost in the real world was but I remember buying sea stores for less than 3 bucks a carton, that’s right 3 bucks, three as in one – two – three. Now someone is willing to pay over 50, that is crazy. If you want something to kill you pay me 50 bucks a week for several years and and I sneak into your house at night and will kill you in your sleep long before you have to suffer from emphysema and all the other smoking related illnesses.

I have seen all manner of cessation products, form patches to pills, to acupuncture to hypnosis, smoking cessation products can have a fabulous business model built around them. I do not think any of them will work unless you want to quit, I have seen each of the remedies succeed and each fail and the only thread I could see was whether the person really and truly wanted to quit. When I quit I used every tool available to me, patches and pills. I actually spent more money for three months on smoking cessation products than I did cigarettes, but then after those three months I was off the hook for smokes and cessation products.

Several years ago, after the first of the big lawsuits, the price spiked up my Dad quit smoking cold turkey. No my Dad was a chain smoker, at least 3 packs a day and he smoked them right down to the filter. He got every bit of smokable tobacco out of each and every one of those cancer sticks. When the price spiked he quit, cold turkey, he did not use a patch or a pill just will power. I thought he would quit because smoking was bad for him or because he was short of breath a lot. Not my Dad he quit because he was “not paying for anybody else’s medical bills”. At that time they were giving people large awards to help them defray the cost of medical care, or cancer treatments. Now if my Dad can quit cold turkey after smoking at least three packs a day for probably 45 years ANYONE can quit.

Can you still afford to smoke and why would you anyway?