Philip Morris and the Kingdom of Tobacco

I recently quit smoking, and I’m always looking for good reasons to not start again. I guess the first really good reason for not smoking is the price of cigarettes. We don’t really think about heart attacks or not being able to breathe when we’re having our morning coffee (morning coffee is always consumed with its partner The Cigarette if you’re a smoker) – most of us are more concerned with the cost of being a smoker when it comes to short term reasoning. Long term though; definitely health.

Let’s say that you’re a smoker who consumes 20 cigarettes a day. If you go to Smart Club, the cost of a carton of Marlboro Lights is $48,67 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. One carton contains 10 packs of smokes, and each pack 20 cigarettes. That makes your direct weekly cost of smoking $34;

48,67/10 = 4,867
4,867*7 = 34,069

At this rate you will have spent $1.772 by one year, given of course that you only smoke 20 cigarettes per day for that entire year. As a smoker for years, I know that when consuming alcohol or spending time with friends who also smoke that budget is quite level-headed. Thankfully bars and restaurants don’t allow smoking inside their establishments anymore (most places), which seriously cuts down any smoker’s budget.

The profit after costs of those $1.772 goes to the people behind the cigarette companies. Philip Morris, who produces, among other brands, Malboro is one of them.

As King of the Kingdom of Tobacco Philip Morris made a profit in 2008 of $16.3 billion dollars – and that was just for sales outside of the US!

If I had been a more dark and devious person, I’d say that the cigarette industry is a good thing to invest in. Based on profit alone it is, but then there is the tiny little fact of perhaps dying a gruesome death from smoking that’s stopping me from recommending it. People actually die from smoking – right here and right now. The estimated number is 50 per hour in the US alone. 50 per hour! That means that the United States looses 1.200 people by each passing day and night from a drug that’s still legal.

Addiction followed by death – is it any wonder I’ve quit?

Although Barack Obama is working on limiting accessibility to cigarettes by increasing the taxes significantly, the cigarette industry will find a way to sneak around that. As they should – they are a legal business after all. In this day in age I have issues with blaming the industry for a problem affecting all of mankind. Even though they are serious enablers it is we, The People, who chooses to buy and smoke cigarettes. We are killing ourselves on a legal substances – which then raises the question “Why is it legal?”. It seems that the world is panicking over the swine influenza, and giving all the risk groups vaccines to prevent it – well, then, why aren’t we getting vaccines for being addicted to smoking? Why isn’t anyone who’s anything in terms of government anywhere loud and obnoxious about the risks and dangers? Are the tobacco industry too powerful, or too good at lobbying?

Are the Kings of Tobacco truly Kings of Mankind?