Nowadays governments and health institutions are trying to minimize the use of tobacco and cigarettes (together with alcohol and other harmful substances in general) by banning advertising, putting huge health awareness stickers on cigarette packs, raising the taxes which raises the price altogether , banning smoking on public places etc…
But tobacco was being used since 4000 of years ago among the peoples of South America, being chewed or smoked. In these cultures, smoking, and use of tobacco and other psychoactive substances, in general, was of the ritual importance and was consumed by shamans. It was of course introduced to the rest of the world when American continent was “discovered” by Europeans in the 15th century when the mass production and cultivation of tobacco started. Even though there are more ways of tobacco use than smoking, such as sniffing or chewing, the most common way of tobacco use remained in the shape of cigarettes.
So, while tobacco was part of human society for centuries and millennia, today it represents a problem, as we have seen. And being it a good thing or not, cigarette prices are not getting lower. And that is especially the case with the high income countries. In these countries, tobacco use among adult as well as among the young population is getting lower and lower as the time goes making cigarettes less affordable to average population. Mid- and low income countries are the ones with the highest percentage of smokers, where tobacco and alcohol prices are more affordable to average population (and that trend hasn’t changed in years in some of these countries). And therefore these are the countries where we should expect to find the cheapest packs of cigarettes. So, which are those countries that sell the cheapest cigarettes? If you are interested in this matter, you can check out the Insider Monkey’s article on the 10 Cheapest Places to Buy Cigarettes in the World.