Please Help - Need Food (but not cigarettes)

[Ben]

As I pulled into the grocery store parking lot yesterday afternoon, I saw a 'homeless" couple sitting under a tree in a parking lot median holding up "need food -- anything helps" signs. Both of them were smoking cigarettes. Both when I went into the store and when I left, so they obviously had a supply.

Question 1: How much food does a couple of packs of cigarettes buy if you are, in fact, homeless?
Question 2: How stupid are the people who give these two, probably not homeless people, money?

[SteveS]

Back when I did social work, I had a co-worker that would sit down with clients and calculate how much they spent on things like beer and cigarettes.  Some of them could easily have afforded things like a decent car, clothes for their kids, or even an upgrade in housing.  It is all about choices.

[AZRedhawk44]

If I were a vegetarian, I could eat off of about $10 a week.  We have a farmer's market here in Mesa that is crazy-inexpensive for produce.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i can not count the folks i know in 12 step programs who get ebt etc but find plenty of cash for beer and weed  sometimes selling their ebt

[T.O.M.]

I see child support cases from time to time where people come in complaining that they can barely afford to eat, much less pay their support.  All too often, I can smell the smoke on their paperwork.

What is it, about $5 a pack, more or less.  Do a pack a day, 365 a year, and you're looking at $1,825.  That's about $40 a week.  Shopping with care, you could survive on that.  Wouldn't want to do it for long, but it is doable.  heck, at one point when I was a poor student, my budget was around $800 a month, for rent, utilities, insurance, fuel, and food.  I still managed to buy enough beer and ammo to keep life entertaining.

[MillCreek]

^^^ I am not entirely certain, because neither I nor any of my family smoke, but I think that here in Washington state, with all the state and Federal taxes, a typical pack of cigarettes costs approximately $ 9.

[RevDisk]

What is it, about $5 a pack, more or less.  Do a pack a day, 365 a year, and you're looking at $1,825.  That's about $40 a week.  Shopping with care, you could survive on that.  Wouldn't want to do it for long, but it is doable.  heck, at one point when I was a poor student, my budget was around $800 a month, for rent, utilities, insurance, fuel, and food.  I still managed to buy enough beer and ammo to keep life entertaining.

When I was a poor college student, I rolled my own cigarettes. This was prior to Obama's 2252.72% increase on loose tobacco tax. No, that is not a typo. Used to be a tax of $1.10 per pound of loose tobacco, now it's $24.78. Still far cheaper than regular tobacco, but not quite the bargain it once was.

Funny thing is, smokers pay their own weight already. States are rather upset at folks quitting, turning to the black market or finding alternatives like e-cigarettes.

[lee n. field]

Back when I did social work, I had a co-worker that would sit down with clients and calculate how much they spent on things like beer and cigarettes. 

Don't forget lottery tickets.

[HankB]

Back when I did social work, I had a co-worker that would sit down with clients and calculate how much they spent on things like beer and cigarettes.  Some of them could easily have afforded things like a decent car, clothes for their kids, or even an upgrade in housing.  It is all about choices.

Some years back, Consumer Reports did a series of stories about "living on the edge" which was a lament about how tough it was to be poor and keep your kids fed, when you have to budget for booze, butts, gifts, lotto tickets, and other "necessities."

They got a lot of angry letters in response - people subscribed to CR to get product tests, not social commentary - and almost every letter mentioned the poor choices being made by their case studies. (I suspect the editor of the "Letters" page wasn't too happy with the social commentary articles either, considering the sampling of letters that made it into print.) Eventually, after a wave of cancellations, CR got back to product reviews.

[Tallpine]

There are so many of those expensive indulgences that I do not indulge in, that I should be able to live for free on the money that I'm saving   

 

[roo_ster]

When I was a poor college student, I rolled my own cigarettes. This was prior to Obama's 2252.72% increase on loose tobacco tax. No, that is not a typo. Used to be a tax of $1.10 per pound of loose tobacco, now it's $24.78. Still far cheaper than regular tobacco, but not quite the bargain it once was.

Funny thing is, smokers pay their own weight already. States are rather upset at folks quitting, turning to the black market or finding alternatives like e-cigarettes.

Holy sheepdip, Batman!

My grandfolks used to roll their own to save money. I remember Prince Albert in the red can with the flip-top lid.  Every once in a while grandpa would give me an empty can and I would fill it with marbles, & little kid doo-dads and get a whiff of tobacco every time I opened it.

With those sorts of extortionate taxes, I would have zero problem with folks smuggling.  (The smugglers having a better moral case than the revenuers.)  And I wonder if home-production of tobacco is up?

[MillCreek]

There are so many of those expensive indulgences that I do not indulge in, that I should be able to live for free on the money that I'm saving   

 

Amen, brother!  I don't smoke, gamble, chase loose women or drink to excess.  I am going to sure feel stupid dying of nothing some day.

[K Frame]

"States are rather upset at folks quitting, turning to the black market or finding alternatives like e-cigarettes."

Some years ago New York raised the hell out of the state taxes on cigs and all of the pols were talking about how wonderful a thing it would be because it would get a lot of people to stop smoking.

Then people stopped smoking, or if they kept smoking, they drove to another, cheaper, state or to one of the Indian reservations.

It didn't take the pols long to start screaming about the loss of tax revenue, and yet no one called them on their lies.


Stopping smoking is one of the things I'm going to address in the coming year. I figure that if the anti-smoking drugs are now covered by Obamacare, I might as well take advantage of them.

[Sergeant Bob]

Stopping smoking is one of the things I'm going to address in the coming year. I figure that if the anti-smoking drugs are now covered by Obamacare, I might as well take advantage of them.

Quitting smoking was one of the best things I ever did for myself. Good luck!

[Ben]

Some years ago New York raised the hell out of the state taxes on cigs and all of the pols were talking about how wonderful a thing it would be because it would get a lot of people to stop smoking.

Wasn't there some kind of "loophole market" started there after that (either NY or NYC)? I seem to recall reading that somehow loose tobacco was not included in the tax hike, so a bunch of tobacco shops opened up where people just bought tobacco and paper and rolled their own cigs, escaping the tax.

[MillCreek]

^^^ There are (or were) a number of such places in the Seattle area.  I think I remember reading fairly recently that most of them are gone due to changes in either state or Federal tax law that largely negated any cost savings of using these places as opposed to buying commercial pre-made cigarettes.

[RevDisk]

^^^ There are (or were) a number of such places in the Seattle area.  I think I remember reading fairly recently that most of them are gone due to changes in either state or Federal tax law that largely negated any cost savings of using these places as opposed to buying commercial pre-made cigarettes.

2252.72% tax hike. Not quite entirely negated, but largely reduced, yes. There was also a tax hike of 2750.27% on small cigars. And people are screaming bloody murder that pipe tobacco tax only increased 257.27%.

Also, tax on commercial cigarettes is approximately $22.88 per pound of tobacco or $50.33 per 1,000 cigarettes, which Obama wants to raise to $97.65 per 1,000 cigarettes. He also wants a further near doubling of taxes on all other forms of tobacco. So we'll probably be looking at a 4000% tax raise on RYO tobacco since around 2009.

[Monkeyleg]

"States are rather upset at folks quitting, turning to the black market or finding alternatives like e-cigarettes."

Some years ago New York raised the hell out of the state taxes on cigs and all of the pols were talking about how wonderful a thing it would be because it would get a lot of people to stop smoking.

Then people stopped smoking, or if they kept smoking, they drove to another, cheaper, state or to one of the Indian reservations.

It didn't take the pols long to start screaming about the loss of tax revenue, and yet no one called them on their lies.


Stopping smoking is one of the things I'm going to address in the coming year. I figure that if the anti-smoking drugs are now covered by Obamacare, I might as well take advantage of them.

NYC and Chicago have the highest cigarette taxes in the US. A carton of name brand cigarettes is $110 to $120 before sales tax in both cities, compared to $45 to $50 here in AL, and $50 to $60 elsewhere.

The most recent study I saw says that 60% of cigarettes sold in NYC are smuggled in from other states. Gangs that  previously sold cocaine have moved to cigarettes, as the profits are just as good, and the penalties are misdemeanor rather than felony.

I remember in the 1990's when Canada jacked cigarette taxes through the roof. There were so many people smuggling cigarettes in from the US that the Canadian government lost billions in tax revenues. Their solution was to lower the tax to increase tax revenues.

[Scout26]

I'm glad I quit when I did (when they hit $2 a pack).  I remember buying a carton of cigarettes (with my ration card) at the Class VI store in the late 1980's for $8 or $9 a carton.  Now that's what a pack costs.   Unbelievable.

And I knew a few folks that went to Roll Your Own when Illinois, Cook County and Chicago all jumped on the "Let's take money from smokers !!  Everyone hates them !!  And we'll outlaw smoking in bars, etc."  Then bemoaned the fact that they took in less revenue.  (This is my shocked face.)

Then when Obama did his 2200% tax increase on loose tobacco, they do the mail order from Indian Reservations thing.  The invisible hand continues to work no matter how hard the bureaucrats try to stop it.

 

[RevDisk]

A "friend of a friend" used to arrange for cigarettes to be mailed from Switzerland to somewhere in the US. It was legal to have possession of ONE carton of duty free cigarettes, as I recall but IANAL. So a couple buddies that didn't smoke got a package of smokes in the mail once a month.

Cost delivered, duty free version? $15 per carton. Store price? $50 per carton.


Some of us honestly did consider becoming cigarette smugglers. If you had only a small stash and managed to somehow get caught, it was a manageable fine. Only way they can (at the time) shut down cigarette smugglers was via conspiracy and RICO. That's not considering how easy it was to forge tax stamps on packs of smokes, which few of the smugglers bother with. You do a decent forge job on the tax stamp, and you could sell them in the small independent corner stores. Split the markup between the store owner and the smugglers, you're talking $2 per pack gross profit. Doesn't sound like much. But $20 per carton adds up quick.  

We talked it over while drinking, but we were too much honest citizens to do it. Probably the closest I came to criminal enterprise here in the US.

[SADShooter]

But government intervention in <insert facet of economy> will increase access, lower costs, and improve quality!

[BlueStarLizzard]

I pay about $70 every two weeks for two cartons.

Seriously debating getting one of those fake ciggerette started sets instead of a second carton on friday.

If they keep hiking up the taxes on tobbacco, and people keep quiting, they're gonna have to legalize pot to make up in lost revenue.

[Scout26]

A "friend of a friend" used to arrange for cigarettes to be mailed from Switzerland to somewhere in the US. It was legal to have possession of ONE carton of duty free cigarettes, as I recall but IANAL. So a couple buddies that didn't smoke got a package of smokes in the mail once a month.

Cost delivered, duty free version? $15 per carton. Store price? $50 per carton.


Some of us honestly did consider becoming cigarette smugglers. If you had only a small stash and managed to somehow get caught, it was a manageable fine. Only way they can (at the time) shut down cigarette smugglers was via conspiracy and RICO. That's not considering how easy it was to forge tax stamps on packs of smokes, which few of the smugglers bother with. You do a decent forge job on the tax stamp, and you could sell them in the small independent corner stores. Split the markup between the store owner and the smugglers, you're talking $2 per pack gross profit. Doesn't sound like much. But $20 per carton adds up quick.  

We talked it over while drinking, but we were too much honest citizens to do it. Probably the closest I came to criminal enterprise here in the US.

Given that's it the BATFEIO doing the enforcing, you could run your operation out of their DC Headquarters breakroom and never get caught.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/26/us-atf-misplaced-420-million-cigarettes-in-stings/?intcmp=latestnews

[Devonai]

"First they came for the cigarettes,  and I did nothing..."

My first call to action was when they were planning on banning clove cigarettes.   I wrote my reps, to no avail.  Now you can get clove cigarillos that are almost identical, as long as the antis don't catch on, of course.

As a pipe smoker, primarily, I have not noticed any drastic price increases.  I did not know about the tax increases Rev mentioned.  I can still get a month's supply of Frog Morton for less than $12, so I'm content for now.

[Monkeyleg]

Now, if you're moving more than a certain number of cigarettes and you get caught, it's a federal felony (I think it's 6000 packs, or 600 cartons). Chicago has a reward for people who turn in others who are selling bootleg cigarettes.

For about a year I ordered cigs out of Switzerland, and saved a lot of money. Then the state of WI and other states "persuaded" one of the online retailers to give up their customer list. The state sent out letters to people on the list informing them of the unpaid taxes they owed on the cigarettes they'd bought. I was sweating that, because it would have cost me over $6000 in taxes if I'd been on that list.