$14.25 for a pack of Newport Cigarettes?

I was in the Navy. Buying cigaretts at the base exchange @ 80 cents a carton was cheap. But I quit when my 1st. son was born. The price rose to $1.20 a carton. As I found out once you begin feeding babies want to continue to eat. I could smoke or buy 15 bottles of baby food for that $1.20. We had a healthy well fed baby.
 
When I was in the Navy in the 1950s they were $1 a carton (10 packs).

I quit in 1963 when I had a very painful lung problem. Haven't had one since.
 
Grampa Don said:
Oh, I have sympathy for folks addicted to nicotine or anything else. I don't think most intend to become addicts. And, breaking addictions can be difficult. I've seen people struggle with it.
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Very true and what I observed from my own smoking addiction is that I really didn't think of myself as an addict all the years I smoked and didn't realize the power that addiction to nicotine had over me each and every day. Oh sure, I could always quit or go without, until actually faced with that choice. And yeah, it was a strugge to quit. Took a good year or so to really solidify a long term quit.
 
I joined a pipe smoking forum. It's interesting. A lot of these guys (almost all are guys) came from cigarettes to pipes. Pipe tobacco can be expensive too, but you get more mileage from it. A good pipe smoker can go over an hour on one pipeful. The goal is to keep it barely lit and not inhale. But, you still get a nicotine hit.

They took a survey of how often they smoke. It varied a lot, but many only smoke once a day or even once or twice a week. So, not all are addicted. Most pipe tobacco is flavored and the smoke can be very pleasant.

I was a pipe smoker in the 60's and I still have them. A pipe can be very relaxing. Nicotine does make you feel better. It reduces stress and sensitivity to pain. My Dad said it gave him pep. There's a reason it can be addicting.

I've been trying it again. I figure I don't have enough years left for it to make much difference as long as I do it in moderation. Sipping on a warm pipe on a cool evening outdoors is a simple pleasure I can still afford. It worked for Gandalf.
 
ElCastor said:
Cigarettes killed my mother. There is a reason they are called coffin nails. Rich or poor they are always a tragic mistake. Oh, and by the way, the nicotine in them is addictive.
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They can be but George Burns lived to be 100 and smoked cigars the whole time. I remember the world back in the 50's and sixties and how ashtrays were everywhere all the time because every adult smoked just about and I remember when it all began to change when scientists and doctors started telling people cigarettes were bad. They never mentioned that cigarettes could help insomnia or that they could relieve /lessen chronic pain.

Scientists will support the agenda of whoever is funding them. It doesn't matter if what they say is 100% accurate or not. So what if their agenda was to vilify cigarette smoking thereby dividing people into that smoked and those that quit leaving those who once liked each other as opponents? And what if this garnered tons of money for pharmaceutical companies from people who now experienced more pain or insomnia? It could be billions of dollars on the line.

Oh wait, they just did that with Covid, didn't they?
 
Gary O' said:
I remember them being $.25 a pack in the machines

Then, as a teen, they went to $.50 in the machines
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I can't remember how old I was, but my dad would buy a pack from the vending machine for a quarter and there would be two shiny pennies inside the cellophane as change. He'd give me the pennies and I'd make a beeline to the gumball machine.
 
Grampa Don said:
Oh, I have sympathy for folks addicted to nicotine or anything else. I don't think most intend to become addicts. And, breaking addictions can be difficult. I've seen people struggle with it.
Click to expand...
I smoked for over 45 years, am monitoring pulmonary nodules in my lungs through periodic CT scans. Perhaps if cigarettes hadn't been so easy to get I wouldn't be playing the "wait and see if you got lung cancer" routine here, in my latter years.
 
chic said:
Scientists will support the agenda of whoever is funding them. It doesn't matter if what they say is 100% accurate or not. So what if their agenda was to vilify cigarette smoking thereby dividing people into that smoked and those that quit leaving those who once liked each other as opponents? And what if this garnered tons of money for pharmaceutical companies from people who now experienced more pain or insomnia? It could be billions of dollars on the line.

Oh wait, they just did that with Covid, didn't they?
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“More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking. For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.
Secondhand smoke exposure contributes to approximately 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and 400 deaths in infants each year.”Health Effects of Smoking and Tobacco Use

As for Covid …
Nearly 7 million Americans have been hospitalized by Covid and
1,188,991 Died.
COVID Data Tracker
 
ElCastor said:
“More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking. For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness. Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.
Secondhand smoke exposure contributes to approximately 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and 400 deaths in infants each year.”Health Effects of Smoking and Tobacco Use

As for Covid …
Nearly 7 million Americans have been hospitalized by Covid and
1,188,991 Died.
COVID Data Tracker
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My late husband was a smoker when I married him. Over the following years, he tried and tried to stop smoking. He'd stop for three weeks, a month, and then start back up again. There wasn't a lot of talk those days about second-hand smoke. I was appealing to him to stop for his own health. Nothing was getting through.

I had chronic bronchitis (we lived in the Detroit area......EVERYBODY had chronic bronchitis) that was diagnosed as "developing emphysema". My doctor sent me to a lung specialist who told me I had to stop smoking. I protested that I had never smoked. He asked if I lived with a smoker. I said I did. He said that if I lived with someone who smoked in the house and/or the car, I might as well be a smoker myself.

I went home and told that to my husband. He took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, threw it in the trash and never smoked another cigarette in his life. It took something over-and-above his own health to get him to quit. Thank God for a man who cared enough about my health to do something so difficult as quit cold-turkey.
 
jujube said:
My late husband was a smoker when I married him. Over the following years, he tried and tried to stop smoking. He'd stop for three weeks, a month, and then start back up again. There wasn't a lot of talk those days about second-hand smoke. I was appealing to him to stop for his own health. Nothing was getting through.
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Smokers have a hard time quitting because nicotine is highly addictive.

“Nicotine dependence occurs when you need nicotine and can't stop using it. Nicotine is the chemical in tobacco that makes it hard to quit. Nicotine produces pleasing effects in your brain, but these effects are temporary. So you reach for another cigarette.
The more you smoke, the more nicotine you need to feel good. When you try to stop, you experience unpleasant mental and physical changes. These are symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.”
Nicotine dependence - Symptoms and causes
 
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