The True Cost of a Pack of Cigarettes

Despite repeated health warnings and despite heavy taxation, new smokers continue to take up the cigarette habit every year.

Recently a health economist from Duke University and a professor from the University of South Florida conducted an exhaustive study, utilizing records going back to 1951 to determine once and for all the true cost to the smoker, the smoker’s family and to society of each pack of cigarettes purchased in this country.

Their astounding finding is that every pack of cigarettes ends up costing $39.88.

Young people who are considering taking up the smoking habit need to be prepared to pay an enormous cost for their habit over their lifetime. When inflation is added in, the actual cost per pack for a young person who takes up smoking today could well exceed $60 to $70 per pack over their lifetime.

The cost of almost $40 per pack based on today’s prices takes into account such costs as the cost of the cigarettes themselves, taxes, increased cost of life and property insurance, increased medical care and lost earnings due to smoking related factors.

Interestingly, the study found that cigarette smokers themselves bear the brunt of smoking expenses. Smokers will end up paying approximately $33 per pack (based on today’s prices) with their families paying $5.44 per pack and society as a whole paying just $1.44 per pack. The reason that society pays as little as it does is because smokers tend to die younger and don’t live to draw as much from Social Security or Medicare.

So in addition to the medical reasons for not smoking, young people now have another reason, one that hits them where it really hurts…right in their pocketbook.