the cost of dying

[writing while the red hot chili peppers transports me back to high school with scar tissue ]

if i smoke an average of 6-7 sticks per day, (which means i am not making allowances for gloomy and depressing days) then i consume 2400 cigarettes in one year. that's equivalent to 120 packs, (as one pack contains 20 sticks) equivalent to 12 reams.

i smoke vogue cigarettes, which cost 79 pesos per pack. one hundred twenty packs of cigarettes cost nine thousand four hundred eighty pesos (php 9,480). this is my annual budget in cigarettes alone.

one pack of vogue cigarettes carries a php 13.44 import tax, which translates to paying one thousand six hundred twelve pesos and eighty cents (php 1,612.80) of annual import tax when multiplied by 120 packs.

according to the world book encyclopedia, one cigarette contains an average of two milligrams (2mg) of nicotine. then, my cigarette intake of 2400 sticks yearly means i poison my lungs with 4800 milligrams, or 0.0048 kilograms. expressed in kilograms, it hardly sounds harmful; it would actually take 104 years before i fill my lungs with just one kilogram of nicotine.

now that was a lot of math!!! i think i need a smoke. =)








p.s. happy new year, everyone.