Cost Of Smoking At $300 Billion A Year For Americans

WalletHub, a personal finance web site, pegs the real cost of smoking for Americans at $300 billion a year.  

That includes the cost of cigarettes, medical bills and loss of productivity. 

WalletHub ranked all the states according to cost per smoker.

Kentucky ranked No. 1 with the lowest amount at just over $22,000 a year while New York was last with over $45,000.

California ranked 42 with a cost of over $36,000 per smoker per year — that number jumps to almost $2 million over a smoker’s lifetime.

Felicia Estrada, clinic facilitator at El Concilio in Stockton for the American Lung Association’s Freedom from Smoking program, says those who try to quit often do not take into account the real costs of smoking.

“Doctor’s visits, maybe loss of work, being sick, and asthma and coughing," Estrada says. "So that did kind of help them look at the costs being a little more than they were thinking about what I’m paying for my pack of cigarettes.”

WalletHub states 38 million Americans use tobacco.