Some stats on who smokes

While it was established long ago that smoking rates are higher among the poor, a Gallup survey released on Friday suggests there is a sliding scale: smoking decreases as income increases.

The poll, based on interviews with more than 75,000 Americans this year, also indicated that Americans are thoroughly worldly when it comes to lighting up — they smoke at almost the same rate as the worldwide median. A 2006 poll concluded that 22 percent of mankind smoked; 21 percent of Americans smoke, according to today’s count.

Among the huddled masses smoking outside the United Nations in Manhattan (smoking was banned indoors in 2003), Turks seem most likely to be in attendance. According to Gallup’s last estimate, 50 percent of Turkey’s citizens smoke, far more than any other.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/american-sm...

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do you seriously suggest cutting off aid to poor kids just because their parents smoke? Poor people get litte pleasure out of working 60 hours a week, a ciggie is just a little reward. Damn!

Cigarettes have no health benefits. Something else has been proven to have health benefits.

They have made the wrong thing legal, in my opinion.

Smoking something else relieves stress, too.

but should we really punish people for FOLLOWING the law about which plant to smoke????

I think I misread the intention the poster I was responding to. I thought they were implying more people receiving the benefits are poor, so its OK that poor people (smokers) are paying for it. I think I just misread the response and was being bitterly sarcastic

we can all be in caustic moods from time to time.. i know i can....sometimes I even overlook sarcasim

Gawd we're a stupid, stupid country.

The relief of stress is due to the brain getting its fix of nicotine, but the stress is being caused by withdrawals to begin with. It's a vicious cycle.

Spoken as a former nicotine addict.

At work, whenever I am stressed by a certain project I am working on, I go outside and have a cigarette. It relieves my anxiety and I am able to continue working.

I smoked 2+ packs a day, so I know how it used to be. It is a hit that temporarily relieves stress, until the high goes away, which then creates its OWN stress. It's selfdefeating.

Relieve stress, that is.

Bake

caused by the junkie-addiction in the first place. You'd be less stressed if you didn't have that chemical craving.

Most non-smokers aren't running around in a continual stress-state.

I can only afford to eat 1 to 2 small meals a day on my meager wages, so smoking makes it a little more tolerable. Of course the DU Taliban would like to outlaw one of the few things that makes my life just slightly less miserable.

It did for me, that's for sure.

One would think that when earning such a little amount, shoes for their children and decent clothing would be more important than supporting such a filthy addiction. But stupid is as stupid does I guess

Sure does sound like the fundies to me too!

Like guns, don't think people who have some form of religion are insane and need locked up (though I would call most political spectrums a form of religion since it is based on beliefs).

I used to liberals were pro choice and freedom for the individual, I doubt that sometimes here...

a sinner.

It just makes you smell like you've been there.

someone holding a sign saying that they need money if i see them smoking. does that make me a fundie?

live my way, or get nothing from me.

Kind of like some complain about those missions from churches that pass out food and put a pamphlet in it.

Maybe you should toss em a dollar and a pamphlet so they can learn to live better. Cause their choices are bad and they be needing to be learnt how to live the right way.

money spent on cigarettes instead of food. it's MY money and MY choice.

BTW. i'm a former smoker. i stopped 26 years ago when cigs were $1.05 a pack.

It's theirs. So if they want to buy cigarettes, beer or whatever else with it, that's their business. Of course before you give it to them, it is YOUR money and you have the right to give it to whoever you want--or not. And be as judgmental as you want to about it.

Okay, granted, I smoke so that isn't something I'm likely to be judgmental about. But basically I feel that it's none of my business what they do with it. I've been down and out too, and even had to resort to panhandling myself a couple of times. So unless I'm flat broke myself, I try to help out anyone who asks me. If whatever-it-is buys them a few minutes' worth of comfort, and enables them to make it through one more day, it's worth it as far as I'm concerned. Because I've been there.

I agree with you, I just happen to give to smokers too. Miserable people look for little comforts in live, even addictions.

Bake

You have no idea how miserable it is out there, do you?
Have you ever bothered to look at the faces of the people who are homeless? Do you just look to see if they are smoking or doing whatever else you disapprove of?

I've seen people with that attitude before. If it's not smoking then it's something else. They'll be damned if they give change to someone that THEY in THEIR 'I'm better than you' righteous attitude deem unworthy.

What it basically boils down to is they blame the homeless for being homeless and would rather not have the great unwashed sullying up their pretty little view. They blame the homeless for 'personal failure' and other assorted rubbish. They just don't get it could happen to them as well.
Bragging they won't give money to a smoker or drinker or what have you is just a polite way of being a condescending self absorbed self-righteous nasty snob.

Give money or don't give money, it's your choice. However, once the smoking issue is resolved in your mind, what will be your next excuse?

"just judgemental (sic) and using your actions to teach them a lesson..."

Much like refusing to give an individual five bucks while they're wearing an Aryan nation t-shirt and holding a placard that says "White Power" is merely judgmental and using one's actions to teach them a lesson also.

But I doubt a dollar and pamphlet will do much good in dissuading the individual from his chosen course of action in either the long or the short term.

Just because a lifestyle exists does not make it worthwhile. If I just sat at home all day and downloaded porn, is that a worthwhile activity that I should ask people to support me on?

they can smoke all they want, but i'm not giving them money for it.

Someone whose only comfort in life is their miserable addiction clearly deserves no sympathy or support.

You are basically saying that you feel if you were out on the streets and had a need which feels as powerful as hunger you could kick the habit easily. Or that you would never be tempted to seek temporary comfort from a substance when your life has gone to shit. Because, if you do not feel that way, you would give a bum money even if he spends it on drugs.

I do not buy it, and I bet when things go wrong in your life the locus of control is suddenly a lot less internal than it is when you are judging homeless people.

like you who will give them money for their cigs. they don't need mine.

Are you surprised you get flamed on a progressive site with an attitude that boils down to "well poor addicts don't need my help because they have yours"?

i don't think it's very progressive to call people assholes, fundies, etc.

would be more tolerant of others.

this whole thread is ridiculous. we have people on both sides who are not going to change how they feel. i've said all i'm going to say.

Well thanks for admitting that you are an intolerant asshole by your own logic!

These days I'll only give money to the ones who have signs that say they need money for smokes or alcohol.

It's probably going for that anyway - I appreciate the honesty.

I ask them what their favourite brand is, what kind of beer or wine they like, and if they smoke hash. This happens a couple of times a year, but I have given people a pack of smokes, a sixer and a gram of hash along with five Euro to get a sandwhich. It cost me about 20 euro to do that, I do it once or twice a year. The people usually smile and thank me.

I've seen homeless people rummaging through outdoor ashcans looking for butts with enough left on them to smoke.

Bake

If I can afford to give money, I do. Most of the time I can't. I certainly WILL give them cigarettes if they ask, though - because I know how much it sucks to be in withdrawal, on top of all the other miserable shit poverty inflicts.

Smokers have a social code, you know. You can ALWAYS ask for a smoke from a stranger if you need one. (This transcends race, gender, class, etc. - anyone can ask anyone.) We will ALWAYS give unless we're down to their last few and broke (and if that's REALLY the case, no shame in refusing, but I always search my soul pretty hard before I say no).

Not saying you should take up the nasty weed, but I have to say, that social code has a lesson in it than anyone could take a benefit from.

$5,000.-$15,000. a year. Very smart indeed..

If you eliminated the federal gas tax the price would not decrease. The former tax would just become additional profit for big oil.

Think it through and tell me how cigarettes and gasoline are different.

basically don't increase or decrease with taxation.

They can pick their margins at will, basically, & regulate demand, too.

For example:

Imagine cigarettes cost $1.00/pack. Ninety-five cents is the cost of production, five cents is profit.

Now add $1.00 in tax, & imagine that loses you 25% of your customers on the basis of price, but the remaining ones will pay the new price plus X.

At $2.05/pack new price v. $1.00/pack old price:


Cost of production: .95 v. .95

Tax collected: $0 v. $1

Total sales: 100 packs v. 75 packs

Total revenue: $100 v. $153.75

Total profit: $5 v. $7.5

Despite the tax & 25% reduction in consumption, profits still increase with just a marginal increase in pre-tax price. This is why tobacco corps are as profitable as ever, despite 30 years of tax hikes & a big drop in consumption.

Same thing with oil. There's effectively no competion or alternative without major disruption at the consumer level & both oil & tobacco consumers are "addicts," either physiologically or via economic necessity.

If you removed all the taxes, would the oil & tobacco corps just keep the difference?

No, I don't think so. I think charging higher prices but diverting it to government serves the interests of large monopolistic corporations in various ways. If the taxes were removed tomorrow, but the corps kept the prices the same, I think it would reduce their profit & power over the mid to long-range.

http://ash.org/cigtaxfacts.html
here from 1999, the cost was $1.90 per pack, only 67 cents of which was taxes. So even in 1999 a pack a day smoker was spending $693.5 a year, and only 35% of that was because of taxes. I cannot find data on the current federal tax, or the average price, except that the average state tax is $1.19 per pack. Still, the non-tax part of it is costing about $500 a year, enough money for a desktop computer every year, or more, depending on how much is smoked.

State taxes range from $2.57/pack (NJ) to .15 cents/pack (MO). Median (1/2 of states above, 1/2 below) = $1.00.

Some municipalities also tax smokes.

Source = finance org, not a pro or anti-smoking site.

http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/cigarett.html

Here in wash, the cheapest cigarettes i've seen in my area are around $4. Combined state & local taxes = $2.42; more than the non-taxed cost of the cheap smokes.

tobacco is cheaper in cans than in pre rolled cigs. I do not smoke tobacco but I have lots of buddies that do that.

low incomes also suffer all of the other problems that are a result of poverty which include a lack of education and the potential benefits that go along with it.

Poor people live from day to day and the working poor live from check to check. They usually don't enjoy the luxury of a hopeful future, or much of a future at all. So telling them that smoking will kill them "some day" has very little meaning.

Better to get a little pleasure now than to work toward a greater pleasure later that seems beyond your reach.

much better than I did!

described what I have seen (and experienced a bit) quite well and with a great deal more empathy.

edit typo

I've seen and experienced a bit myself - sometimes with people who had everything, and lost it due to addictions, and I have empathy for anyone who suffers with any kind of addiction, because I have struggled with my own, but I'm one of the lucky ones.

The poor deserve their lot, because they are amoral and make poor choices.

A lot of them drink, too.

how dare they try to dull the reality of their mundane existances.

And, wrong though it might be, it is a hard one to break. If someone is living on that little money, it's doubtful they have much of anything, anyway - it's likely they just don't give a damn.

Many people begging for money are drug addicts and alcoholics, too - I doubt any of them would use the money for anything most would approve of.

extremely hard to break.

But a little further downthread someone told a story about a guy who had to stay in the hospital (amputations) where it was totally impossible to smoke.

So, people who say there's no way they can quit...what do they, or what would they, do if faced with the same situation?

Many hospitals won't allow smoking anywhere on their premises. How do smokers handle this without going crazy?

See, because the thing that I find sad is, once a person manages to get him or herself past a certain point in the withdrawal process, they're pretty much over the hump, so to speak.

From then on, it's a conscious choice as to whether or not they pick up the first cigarette that will lead them right back down that path of addiction...just like a recovering alcoholic.

But many of them go back.

The first time I quit, it was for almost five years. I went back when my life got very chaotic. Stress. I can't blame anyone but myself for picking up that first cigarette.

This time it's been almost 13 years and I know it's up to me to NOT pick it up again.

anyway, I guess my point was that if people are able to stop smoking while they're sick or in a place where they absolutely cannot smoke, they are being rather stupid to pick it back up again.

pipi_k, It's my understanding that they can give smokers nicotine in some other form while they are there so that they are not withdrawing. I would never expect someone to withdraw while they were dealing with other medical problems, unless it was medically neccessary. We have a family friend that smokes so much that when he was admitted for surgery several years ago he went through such a horrible withdrawal that they were convinced he was withdrawing from drugs. They had to convince them otherwise. They might have given him the nicotine then or at a later surgery, I can't remember.

aorto-bifemoral bypass surgery. His left toes were turning purple due to the lack of blood flow. His left femoral artery was completely blocked and his right leg was close behind. He had peripheral arterial disease from smoking. He was literally days away from losing his left leg due to the lack of blood flow. He was cut from the bottom of his sternum all the way down past his groin and about six inches into his legs. The surgeon had to graft in a synthetic artery from his aorta into his femoral arteries. It was an extremely traumatic and invasive surgery.

When he was released the first thing he did was smoke a cigarette. We were all stunned in disbelief. He chain smokes more now than before his surgery.

He coded right outside the ER and the team revived him.

It was bizarre. Not often do cigarettes save a life. And since he was dying of congestive heart failure it wasn't necessarily a good thing. This was in a VA Hospital.

No... I didn't think you did.

You can get by on 50 dollars a month in Drum, or Bugler tobacco and roll your own cigs. That will cost about 600 a year. You confuse tobacco with weed. I spend 50 a week on weed in the USA (only 50 a month here in France thanx to lower prices for simillar quality). So I easily went through 2600 a year on grass in the USA.

"I'm soooo superior!"

Yup, that's the "progressive" way.

illegal crack is way too expensive, so yes, crack smokers tend to buy crack instead of clothing. Tobacco smokers tend to buy generic tobacco, or roll their own cigs and buy clothing.

I imagine it must be annoying to walk around with that aching bruise on both sides of your head, you know, from banging on the sides of doors you have to walk through. Expanding the doors in your house by app. three feet might solve that. Thanks.
quickesst

As an ex-smoker, I know exactly what cigs can do. I find it a little unsettling how touchy smokers get about their habit. I had a friend die of lung cancer. He smoked three packs a day of "lights" and before that at least a pack of regs.

Looking at the bar graph, it concerns me that so many low income types smoke, when cigs are sooo expensive! And patches are NOT akin to quitting. You are still putting in the drug. Anyone can quit. They just have to taper off and change their other habits.

It is not about smoking, it is about personal freedom and choice - on many topics.

If someone wants to open a bar that allows smoking, they should be free to do so, same if someone opens one and does not allow it.

Schip is supposed to help low income people, but it taxes something they use and those who voted for the tax increase know that. The did not see it as worthy of a real tax that does not depend on something the government wants you to stop doing anyway.

In other words, it is just plain stupid.

I would say the same about an alcohol tax, or a porn tax, whatever. You want to fund health care do it the right now.

My feeling is that these things are a two-way street. Just because poor people smoke more doesn't mean they should! And if they cannot afford to support themselves properly, why in blazes should we allow them to sicken themselves with cigs? That will just add more health care costs and their money is not being used wisely! Everyone has the responsibility, if they are being helped out, to live in a manner which is both thrifty and wise. Why the hell do you think it is not possible to use food stamps for cigs and alcohol?

Or would you like that to be changed, too?

Wow.

"we"?
"them"?


That's condescension on steroids. That's just about the most sociopathic framing of this I've seen.

"why in blazes should WE allow THEM..."

It just doesn't get any more revealing than that! Paternalistic as all hell.

Its rhetoric I heard during Jim Crow. Appalling. Really appalling.

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Remember the one where you asked me about how I became disabled and complained how my smoking was costing you? Again my disability stems from a traumatic back injury and my payments come from an insurance pool (SS) that I paid into for over 35 years. No one "asked" you to allow shit. I am not being "helped out"-I am being reimbursed. My 'wisdom" does not factor into the equation and you are a simple, moralizing , person.

Why don't they just die already and save all of you good decent people the trouble of having to worry if they are getting any enjoyment or respite out of their miserable squalid lives, however meager.
I guess they'll never be as perfect and as enlightened as you, huh? If they're smart, they'll let you make all of their decisions for them and the world will become a wondrous utopia.

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Basically all people do, we get 177 euro per month for the kid, plus an additional 270 euro a month to pay for the nanny to watch her so we can go to work. We deduct our interest on our home loan from our income taxes and the government gave us a rebate of 300 euro, WE PAID NO INCOME TAX! So, because I, like all parents, get money from the state for my child I should stop smoking hash, to the tune of 60 euro a month, because I get public aid????? What about the people who buy more cakes than I do, or more electronic gadgets, or who spend 100 a month on their cell phone instead of my 30 a month, or 60 for TV instead of my 0?????? You give aid because it is a right of all people to be helped when they need to and you do not use that help as an excuse to bitch about their lifestlyes. This kind of reasoning led to the welfare state being called the nanny state.

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report for discipline - tongue lashings & moral instruction from the liberals at du.

your little smiley is so cute.

People like you scare me.

"Why the hell do you think it is not possible to use food stamps for cigs and alcohol? Or would you like that to be changed, too?"

Here's how it works on the mean streets of NYC:

Find a bodega that will swap the food stamps at 60% of face value for cash.
Example: $100 in FS gets "spent" on food and the customer gets $60 in cash.
Then the customer buys alcohol and cigarettes.

In the real world that law was "changed" decades ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

"taoist"? Hardly.

You don't blow poison on them or throw your butts on the ground for others to take care of for you. You seem to think you are the only one that is important. I don't care if you smoke just keep it to yourself. Is that really too much to ask?

your post is highly ironic.

possibly you will miss the irony.

All smokers claim to be considerate and clean with the byproducts and accouterments of their addiction, but I've yet to meet even one who was.

Most low income smokers buy generics.

I haven't had one for some 20 months now, but still consider myself a smoker at heart.

The Straight Story, I agree to an extent. I'll be missing a great band this weekend because I already have a sinus infection and just can't take the smoke. But, where do you draw the line after restaurants and clubs? Should the smoking smoker in the check-out line at the grocery have to go to another line because they decided to light-up or should I? I'm not doing anything to the smoker, but what they are doing will make me sick.

Been there... They have a vendetta for some reason, and I have some theories but I won't speculate here, or it will really stir the hive.

the level of venom is pretty high toward 20% of the population banned from smoking in every workplace & every significant public or commercial space.

called a "fundie" for saying that.

I was in the ICU for an unrelated ailment and couldn't smoke anywhere I could get to. I would have been one gnarly animal had my doctor not prescribed the patch. Thanks Doc!

I'd assume the lower brackets also lean heavily toward younger people.

they in fact go for prestige brands - because they don't have real habits yet. They smoke a few at a party, a couple a day, etc.

so higher prices don't really discourage youth experimentation. it's more a peer group thing.

don't know if that's what you meant by 'young' but i thought it was an interesting factoid.

Living here on SSI, life is such a struggle that I care less if I go on living

It's painful to live this way so, in a way, it shortens the time I have to suffer

If I had more, life would be more fun

and I'd want it to last as long as possible

Who says "money isn't everything"?

Those that have plenty, that's who.

We both are well aquainted with life on the bottom.

Take care. And thanks for managing the Poverty threads during Poverty Month

........what people don't want to grasp.

That our lives are meaningless, we're told in so many ways that we not only have no worth, but that we're wrongfully taking up air and space, yet then when we want to die, we're locked up because we're "a danger to ourselves"!!

Talk aout CRAZY!!!!

That is really NUTZ!

Telling people they're in the way and then when they finally get it and want to remove themselves from "being in the way", they're locked up as "dangerous".

Now THAT'S crazy!!!!

This needs to be told by a chorus!!

are removed from them in the economic downturn.

The actual worth of a person has much more to do with being accepted and cared about than status and $$$$.

Those of us who aren't accepted because we're on the bottom of the ladder have NONE of anything.

Maybe it's best that it ALL crashes.

Maybe the US would again regain some soul.

so they could provide an example to others, of course, as to how to properly handle poverty.

You are one of the DU people who I most admire

Thanks for the hugs

Love and respect are each person's birthright ... and it is up to each of us merely to KNOW that. (Even about ourselves.) We're BORN that way ... lovable and capable ... and nobody can take it away.

You OWN it.

but that was another life

back before I became disabled

and lost my business, went through foreclosure and another divorce

Now I take and even ask for sometimes

more than my pride back then would have ever expected

and there's always a need for more

Anyway, Thanks

We share far more than you might think.

Hmmm, that would assume that something is different about us, that we don't need the same love and acceptance that others need.

People get trashed enough, and of course they lose sense of worth!

Remember "No man is an island"?

NOBODY iS THAT STRONG.

We all need each other, and no amount of guilt changes that.

brackets are mostly the youngest smokers.

Cigarettes are so expensive that I can't really imagine an adult actually spending 50% or so of income on smokes.

I know a man who smoked for probably forty years or more, developed diabetes, wound up as a double leg amputee because of it. He said that being in the hospital completely unable to go outside for a smoke finally enabled him to quit. He felt that being institutionalized and completely unable to smoke might be the best way to go for a lot of people.

At the core of all addictive behavior is the need to have something that acts on the central nervous system. For some it's drugs. It could be shopping. It could be gambling. It could be sex. the rich really have their choice of a wide variety of CNS agents. The poor have to make do with tobacco and alcohol.

For some it could be truffles.

$4500 per pound

for example.