A Pack of Cigarettes Really Costs $149

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff
Posted Oct 8, 2010 4:13 PM CDT

Newser) – In parts of the US—New York, for one—a pack of cigarettes now costs more than $10. But that's nothing compared to the true cost of smoking, which Spain's Polytechnic University of Cartagena figures to be $149 for men and $104 for women. Researchers analyzed life expectancy for smokers and used the Value of a Statistical Life—an economics measure of how much people are prepared to pay to reduce the risk of death, reports Lab Spaces.

"One of the conclusions of the article is that the price one pays for each pack of cigarettes at a newsstand is only a very small price of the true price that smokers pay for their habit," says one of the researchers. "Given that tobacco consumption raises the risk of death in comparison with non-smokers, it can be assigned a premature death cost for people who do smoke

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