How Much Cigarettes, Alcohol And Drugs Cost Around The World
Say you'd like to buy a basket containing enough cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine and opioids to last you a week. As far as we know, there's not a startup that will sell you such a basket (yet), but the idea of such a bundle — a so-called "vice basket" — is behind the following map comparing cigarette, alcohol and drug prices around the world.
"In absolute terms, the gross weekly cost exceeded $1,000 in only three countries: Japan, New Zealand and Australia," reports Bloomberg. "By comparison, an equivalent basket ran less than $100 in 21 mostly tropical countries, including the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Congo, Colombia, South Africa, Guatemala, Kenya and Myanmar."
Since cost of living varies enormously from country to country, Bloomberg also calculates the cost of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs as a percentage of a country's average weekly income. They found that these illicit habits are cheapest in Luxembourg, the Bahamas and Switzerland and the most expensive in Ukraine, Pakistan and Nepal. The US ranked 38th in affordability, with a vice basket costing 54 percent of the average worker's weekly paycheck.
Head over to Bloomberg to check out the full rankings and learn more about the methodology behind the map.
