The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Smokers burning more money
Report reveals habit costs state residents more than $2.1M
Connecticut smokers beware: The habit isn’t just a health hazard, it can cost those lighting up more than $2.1 million over their lifetime.
The financial website WalletHub released a report analyzing the per-person cost of smoking in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, considering such expenses as the cost of a cigarette pack per day and health care costs.
Connecticut smokers had one of the highest lifetime costs at $2,188,930. Only two states were more expensive for smokers — Massachusetts, where it was $2,209,285, and New York, where average lifetime cost was $2,330,381.
According to WalletHub, smoking-related illnesses have claimed 20 million lives since 1964 in the U.S. The goal of the research, according to the site, was to “encourage the estimated 36.5 million tobacco users in the U.S. to kick the dangerous habit.”
Dr. Philip Greenspan, a pulmonologist with Northeast Medical Group in Fairfield, isn’t optimistic the gambit will work.
“I’d like to think it would work, but I doubt it,” Greenspan said. “(Smoking) is such an addiction. I think people already know it’s unhealthy, and I think they already know it’s expensive.”
The WalletHub study calculates a smoker’s “lifetime” as stretching
from age 18 (when you can legally buy cigarettes) to 69, which is the average age of death for a smoker. In Connecticut, the average onepack-a-day smoker spends $170,513 in a lifetime on cigarettes — the fourth-highest amount nationwide.
The high out-of-pocket costs outlined in the report seem plausible, given the average cost for a pack of cigarettes in Connecticut is $10 to $13.
“It’s really expensive, and it always amazes me how much cigarettes cost,” said Dr. Michael Bernstein, associate director of pulmonary and critical care at Stamford Hospital. “When I was a fellow, we used to joke that (a-pack-a-day smoker) could buy a Honda Accord every month with the money spent on cigarettes, and now I think you could probably buy a 5-series BMW if you aggregate out the cost of cigarettes every day at a pack a day.”
But the cost of smoking goes far beyond the price of a pack of cigarettes, Bernstein said. He said statistics show about 15 percent of Connecticut’s adult population smokes.
“Aside from the obvious risks of lung cancer and emphysema, smokers are more likely to miss work, they’re more likely to need other health care remedies that we don’t think of, such as cough medications or drugs for sinus infections,” he said.
“The dental bills for smokers are higher because they have more tooth decay and tooth staining. … Smokers are also more likely to get viral infections or pneumonia and, especially right now, they are more susceptible to influenza. And for parents who smoke, their kids are more likely to have ear infections or respiratory problems, so it goes far beyond the daily cost of a pack of cigarettes.”
But smokers continue to light up.
Dave, a 37-year-old smoker and Stamford resident who didn’t want to give his last name, said he started smoking when he was 22.
When asked why, he said, “I don’t really know.
“I had some friends that smoked and I guess I was curious, so I tried it,” he said.
Dave said he was fully aware of the risks smoking posed when he started, but it didn’t deter him.
“I guess you just think it’s not going to happen to you,” he said. “That’s probably pretty stupid, but it never really crossed my mind that something like that could happen.”
Dave said he smokes a little less than a pack a day — more if he’s out drinking with friends.
“I’ve thought about quitting,” he said. “I’ve tried a couple of times, but I always end up going back.”
When asked about the WalletHub survey’s findings, he said, “I’m not surprised. Cigarettes are expensive and the price keeps going up.”
Mike Patel, manager at Glenbrook News and Variety on Hope Street, said about 85 percent of the shop’s business comes from cigarette sales. He said most of his cigarette customers are longtime smokers.
Over the past two decades, the price of cigarettes has gone up significantly. When prices go up, Patel said the shop sees about a 25 percent drop in cigarette sales, but not because people are quitting.
“People are still smoking, but they are buying their cigarettes from other states where the prices are lower,” he said. “Every time the prices go up, we lose some of our business. Maybe they try to slow down or switch brands to save money, but I think most are buying cigarettes from outside the state, where they are cheaper.”
Suni Patel, owner of Belltown Superette, a bodega on Belltown Road, said the same, estimating about 20 percent of her shop’s business comes from cigarette smokers.
“We maybe see a slight drop in cigarette sales when the prices go up, but it usually evens out,” she said. “Maybe it’s too hard to quit or maybe people don’t want to quit. Whatever it is, they are still buying cigarettes, even when the prices go up.”
Bernstein said raising the price of cigarettes can be effective, but it isn’t enough to stop people from smoking.
“Raising the price of cigarettes, which is the most direct way to increase the cost for smokers, certainly does decrease the smoking rate in a population or community,” he said. “If you look at states that have the highest cost for cigarettes, they actually have the lowest smoking rates.
“The issue with that is they’ve sort of hit a stagnant level with that now, because we can’t just keep raising the price and hoping that more and more people will quit smoking. So, we have to look at other ways to encourage people to quit, other than just continually raising the price.”