Smokes

[pkveazey]

When I started prepping, a carton of Cigarettes was about $20 to $25. Today, a carton is about $60 to $70. Damn! I'm glad I started buying a backup supply just in case I couldn't get them or afford them. I think they won't be unobtainable but they sure are getting unaffordable. I think that a lot of items will not be available because of transportation supply chain issues. My wife's cousin worked for an off brand cigarette company and smokes were about $1 a pack. I asked him how the company made a profit and he said, "Hell, it only cost them about 25 cents to make a pack." When I think about prepping and smokes, I think about not being able to get them and also about how good of a trade item they will be.

[JohnyMac]

Funny story.

MrsMac use to smoke cigarettes'. About 30-years ago a pack of cigarettes in Rhode Island was $8- a pack. $80- a carton. Then the states assembly decided that cigarettes' were bad for its citizenry so they passed an additional tax on every pack of smokes by $4.00 - Now $12.00 a pack. 

Well MrsMac, crossed the border to Massachusetts or when in Pennsylvania, to buy her smokes due to much lower prices.

Jump ahead two years, due to the lower tax revenue coming into the states treasury, thanks to smokers driving across the border for cheaper product, the state raised alcohol and petrol taxes to make up the loss. 

Guess what, folks started to cross the border to neighboring states for booze and gas.

"We are from the government and here to help".   

[Nemo]

I financed my high school years by selling smokes at school.  Had 4 brands. Marlboro, Winston, Kool and Newport.  Guess who got the menthol and who got the cowboy stud brands.

Got them at the local stores about $3 a carton of 10 and sold them out of my school locker at $1 a pack.  Smoking was permitted at school in the smoking area.   Had to get a smoking permit through the office, signed by parents to be in the "smoking area" but it was never checked.

Financed my rambunctious years on that business.  Dayum, life back then was good.

Nemo

[Sir John Honeybucket]

I enjoy smoking a pipe. Prices have more than doubled in the last few years, but pipe tobacco is still far less expensive than cigarettes and because During the Obama regime, they passed obstructive and senseless regulation which drove many American producers of fine pipe tobacco OUT OF BUSINESS. Touugh I enjoyed  some of these American brands very much, in general I smoke mostly 'English' tobaccos, there are zero additives allowed.  Also, smoking a pipe in an on again, off again pasttime, so I might go a month or two without smoking and then maybe go to 2 - 3 times per day for the next week - as suits my mood.  I keep a pound or two of tobacco in my rotation and it really DOES become better with age.  My lovely Wife on the other hand, is a cigarette smoker and that is very expensive.  I am able to roll my own cigars and cagar leaves, well aged, are far less expensive than trying to buy a quality gicar.  I can roll my own with well aged tobacco for roughly a dollar per cigar - as a treat.

de Siir John Honeybucket