Forty year trends in Canadian tobacco sales

Despite high taxes, the price of tobacco products continues to be a "bargain" for smokers. This paper presents trends since 1950 in real tobacco price index, per capita real disposable income, smoking prevalence, and sales of cigarettes and fine-cut tobaccos. In addition, an "effective tobacco price index", which is the ratio of the real tobacco price index to per capita (age 15+) real disposable income, indexed to a base year (1950) is discussed. This index gives the price of tobacco products as a fraction of real disposable income. The data indicate that, in 1991, the "effective tobacco price" is only 78% of 1950 values.