How Cigarette Addictions Work and Why They're So Profitable For Tobacco Companies

We all know that cigarettes are expensive. Ridiculously so. Here in Maryland, you're usually looking at about $6 per pack, and if you're really trying you can spend over $9 per. That's not all of how smokers line the pockets of tobacco companies, though.

Once you're tired of coughing up stuff that looks like it came from an oil derrick, you get to give those same companies even more money by buying nicotine replacements to give you the same nicotine high that cigarettes do. Am I the only one that finds something wrong with the idea that the same company is selling you an addiction and a cure for it?

The biggest part of cigarette addictions isn't because of the nicotine, though. It's because of how much your mind is wrapped up in the concept of smoking. Direct advertising is mostly banned, but you still see people smoking in movies. It's quite funny when you notice how much that kind of thing makes you want to smoke. I remember seeing some movie where this lady was smoking the same kind of cigarettes that I usually smoked. I paused the movie, went to the store and bought a pack just because of it.

We're also completely overlooking the fact that even the good-hearted people who want you to smoke are making it harder for you. Any time someone tells you that quitting smoking is going to be hard, it actually makes it harder for you to go through with it, because it gives you something easy to fall back on.