The Tobacco Road

“My compassion for someone is not limited to my estimate of their intelligence.” - Dr. Gillian Taylor in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

My grandfather was a very young man in the 1930’s during The Depression.  He lived about the same way as many others did during that time, possibly worse, but he was living in the rural south where things were pretty tough even when it may have been better in other parts of the country. He picked cotton and did odd jobs to support himself and his teenaged wife, my grandmother. As bad as things were, he was still able to afford one leisure time activity; smoking. This is not the case for his descendants.

In the 1980’s the cost of a video game cartridge for a home gaming system was about $60.00. In 2022 the cost of a video game disc is still $60.00. A VHS movie for home viewing cost a whopping $95.00 in the 1980’s. I couldn’t afford them. I had to either rent movies or join a video club to buy them. The cost of a DVD or Blu-ray movie now is between $15.00 and $24.00 on average. That is a substantial price drop. When you factor in that the technology, expertise to create games and films, and the cost of producing both has risen sharply, these things are much more of a bargain now than they were 40 years ago.

In the 1960’s the price for a carton of cigarettes was about $3.00. Thirty years later, in the early 1990’s, the price for a carton was around $10.00 in the mid-south region of the US. So the price had risen seven dollars in thirty years time.  Now after another thirty-two years the cost ranges from $80.00 to $100.00 or more per carton which is a jump of seventy to ninety dollars or more depending on what region of the country you live in. A seven dollar price hike in thirty years time is not unreasonable. A ninety dollar price hike in another thirty years is not only unreasonable it is also price gouging and downright robbery. My nephew who lives near New York told me that 20 years ago cigarettes were $80.00 per carton there and are double that now. I have listened to all of the reasons/excuses for why the cost of this product has risen so much but none of them really hold water in a country with no national healthcare to use as a scapegoat. The healthcare excuse doesn’t even hold water in Canada, the UK, or any other country that does provide it when the healthcare costs for illness related to smoking is no higher and, in many cases, less than the costs for automobile injuries, eating meat or high carb junk foods, drinking carbonated beverages, alcohol consumption, or gun violence. I understand that a pack of cigarettes cost appx. $28.00 in Australia and in Pakistan a pack costs $0.82.  These are the highest and the lowest prices in the world and only Pakistan has a reasonable price. Good thing for Pakistan when you look at the devastation there right now. As cigarette smoking is considered to be a stress reliever those people need all of the help they can get. We in America are being squeezed to death on absolutely everything that might make our lives a little more bearable with everything that has been put upon us. In one of my previous posts about housing I quoted Theodor Adorno with respect to the elites taking everything that the poor have left away from them. This is yet another example of that and the whole world apparently believes that is acceptable. Except Pakistan.

Since the tobacco excuse is illogical when compared to any one of the above mentioned health related problems, and these are not cited as an excuse for charging an exorbitant amount for their purchase, the outrageous prices that we now pay for tobacco products appear to actually be a penalty for being either poor, or of non-white ethnicity, or they are just using us as convenient victims for the manufacturers and sellers to pay exorbitant salaries to their higher ups. It is also possible that it is the ease of levying massive taxes on a product that has been demonized and vilified for decades. I have to wonder if there is a simple economics answer for this that I do not know about but as I learn more and more about the mechanics and philosophies in economic theory it seems that capitalist economics are whatever capitalists want them to be at any given time.  Whenever those who make the economic rules decide that they want to make more money, and there seems to have been a decision of this kind beginning in the 1970’s which has doubled and tripled and quadrupled in the decades since, you find yourself dealing with monumentally inflated prices on housing, healthcare, automobiles, gasoline, and yes, cigarettes.

So, after one has already given up other things that one might enjoy doing for the sake of spending less money so we can hopefully, continue to buy food and still pay the utility bills, is there a good reason for placing an incredible hardship on people who are already banned from smoking in public and in our cars and in some places that we might want to live? There was a video a few years back of a supporter of Senator Rand Paul who was holding his foot on a woman’s head because she was not in agreement on his political choice that was so appalling it hurt to see it. I do get tired of feeling like this country has it’s foot on our heads for daring to have a pastime that some others may not agree with or might object to. A smoker having a cigarette is not going to clog up your arteries or eat a hole in your digestive system or send you to the emergency room with a bullet in you. I do not agree with or subscribe to many of the activities that other people may enjoy doing but it is not my place to fold my arms with a smirk and say that you deserve to have to pay 10 to 20 times more than a product is worth because you have no right to the privilege when I do not approve of it.

One of the saddest things about what has been done to people who smoke is that few people other than smokers care about it. If it isn’t a problem for you then it isn’t a problem at all. A friend of mine who was a nonsmoker previously told me, “I cared about this issue even when I didn’t smoke because I know an injustice when I see one.”  This is a rare thing to hear because it is a rare person who actually gives a damn if it isn’t directly affecting them.

Smokers are not to blame for the lies and deceptions of the cigarette manufactures yet we are vilified for using their product as if we are responsible. Using a potentially harmful product is done by anyone who drives a car, drinks alcohol, uses power tools, takes prescription drugs, or buys a firearm. These things are purchased by choice and it follows that one understands that most things on the planet have a potential for harm even the foods that we eat, and in far too many places, the water that we drink is so dangerous that it can and has caused brain damage. When you think of a smoker try to remember that our use of tobacco products is not an indicator of anything more than it is something that we like to do. There are no other factors involved in it. It should not be viewed as a luxury item that one should be charged an arm and a leg for. Its potential for harm is no greater than many other products which are sold in this country. It has just been selected as one that can be conveniently used to spread some more capitalist wealth around and create a subset of people to victimize.

The ingredients used to make a cigarette are neither rare nor difficult to obtain. It is tobacco, paper, and a fiber for the filter. These things do not have to be imported and obtaining them is not difficult. I understand that tobacco companies have been sued many times over non-disclosure of the possible dangers of smoking but that is not the fault of the consumer.

To be fair to the consumer, a cap needs to be put on the retail price of cigarettes. The price of a pack of cigarettes should be no higher than $2.00 per pack and $20.00 per carton. This is reasonable. It is double what the price was 32 years ago but still affordable. I see no reason other than greed for the current cost. We aren’t buying gold or diamonds or Teslas.  Whatever the manufacturers of tobacco products have done, the purchasers of their products were not participants in it. Forcing the consumer to pay the penalty for their wrongdoing is anti-democratic and amounts to thievery.