November 5^th, 2004

Click here if you want to know how to calculate your own smoking pack years.

OK ... here are some numbers to contemplate:

17.5 Cig		1 Pack		$4.72		365.25 Days
---------	X	---------	X	---------	X	---------	X	17 Years	=	$25,644.20
Day		20 Cig		Pack		Year

Now, there are, of course, some estimates I've had to make here. But I've tried to be conservative:

The average cost of a pack of smogs is one such loose estimate. The cost in 1986 for a pack of butts in Canada was $2.50. At the time of this writing I think it's up around $8.00 or $8.50 (I'm not quite sure). But the price hasn't risen linearly; it stayed at the $5.00 level for about a year, dropping slightly below for a while, then returning to that level for a few years before rising again:

So I worked things out like this:

• For seven years the cost ranged from $2.50 to $4.50 a pack. I assume linearity, making a seven year average of $3.50.
• The cost for about a year was $5.00 a pack, then the cost dropped 10% for a year, rose $0.25 the next year, then returned to the $5.00 level for three more years. I worked that out as four years at $5.00, one year at $4.50 and one year at $4.75.
• Then the price marched up for the next four years steadily (linearily) from $5.25 to $8.00. So I averaged those four years out to $6.625.
• With weighting, here is how I calculated the average cost over 17 years:
  • 7 years averaging $3.50
  • 4 years averaging $5.00
  • 1 year at $4.50
  • 1 year at $4.75
  • 4 years averaging $6.625

So by multiplying the number of years times the average cost for those years, adding up all the products, then dividing by the total number of years, I get $4.72. This is almost definitely low, but at least nobody can accuse me of exaggerating! :-)

Some other considerations:

• The amount of 17.5 butts/day is also low: It does not take into consideration those given to friends or strangers, and it does not take into consideration wild raccous nights at university when it was common to go through a pack between 8:00 PM and 2:00 AM.
• The 17-year figure is definitely low, since it only takes into consideration the years where there was a regular (um, er, "habitual") consumption. It does not consider any sporadic consumption during earlier teen years.

Pack-years

There is an informal measurement of smoking known as the pack-year (sort of like a light-year, but somewhat less staggering in terms of human comprehension). In short, a pack-year is 365.25 packages of cigarettes ... or one package of cigarettes smoked per day for a year.

There are all kinds of calculations and estimates, many conflicting, based on pack-years; however, the one that remains fairly constant and is quoted the most often is that health problems for smokers seem to occur on the far side of the 20 pack-year mark. That is, relatively few smoking-attributable health problems occur before 20 pack-years, and relatively many occur after the 20 pack-year mark.

Using the numbers above, I can quickly and easily calculate total pack-years:

17.5 Cig		1 Pack
---------	X	---------	X	17 Year-Days	=	14.875 Pack-Years
Day		20 Cig

That represents approximately 74% of the way to the 20 pack-year "milestone".

* * *

Smokers are the punching bag of the Western World these days. Every little negative thing that can possibly be linked to smoking is harped on repeatedly and often. You'd think that the world was coming apart at the seams solely because of smokers and smoking.

And, in fact, it is pretty common to hear a statistic such as this:

Studies have found a strong link between teenaged smoking and grade point averages. Teenagers who smoke average 3/4 of a grade point lower than those who don't ... and the more a teenager smokes, the lower his/her grade point average is.

And because smoking is the root of all evil, it must be pretty obvious to all without ability to reason logically that smoking results in lower grades. After all, the statistics can't lie, can they? The statements made above are proof of just how horrible smoking is, aren't they?

Well, no. There are many other interpretations of the facts listed above. Here are just a few (oh, and before you reject them as patentedly ridiculous, remember that the conclusion I made above is right at home, logically speaking, in this list):

• Teenagers with so many emotional problems that they turn to nicotine to ease their stress and/or awkwardness also have a difficult time performing well in school
• Below average performance in school causes teenagers to smoke
• Smoking relieves enough stress in marginally-performing teenagers that they can stay in school longer
• Among teens, smoking raises failing school marks to within 3/4 of a grade point of regular teens

It's all in how you look at it, isn't it? :-)

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