Maryland Among States With Highest Smoking Costs: Report

MARYLAND — It's no secret that smoking is bad for your health, but it's just as bad for your wallet, too. If you smoke in Maryland, it costs you $61,412 a year, according to a new report by WalletHub.

That's a year's salary for some people. According to the personal-finance data website, that amount makes Maryland one of the top states in the country with the highest smoking costs, coming in at No. 6 overall.

But the numbers don't get better. The estimated financial cost of smoking over a lifetime is just above $2.3 million per smoker, WalletHub reports.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $2.7 billion was spent on health care costs in Maryland due to smoking in 2009. As you can probably imagine, that number is likely higher today.

In addition, 7,500 adults in Maryland die from smoking-related illnesses each year, the CDC reports.

To encourage the estimated 34.2 million tobacco users in the U.S. to kick this dangerous habit, WalletHub looked into the true per-person cost of smoking in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

"We calculated the potential monetary losses — including both the lifetime and annual cost of a cigarette pack per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs — brought on by smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke," the company wrote in a news release.

Here's how Maryland performed in other categories:

• Out-of-pocket cost per smoker: $170,119 (Rank: No. 43)
• Financial-opportunity cost per smoker: $1,779,721 (Rank: No. 43)
• Health care cost per smoker: $250,556 (Rank: No. 45)
• Income loss per smoker: $732,715 (Rank: No. 50)
• Other costs per smoker : $14,682 (Rank: No. 37)
• Total cost over lifetime per smoker: $2,947,793

According to WalletHub, Washington, D.C. has the highest smoking costs in the country. Smokers in the District of Columbia will pay the highest out-of-pocket costs, which is $197,801.

Here's how other states compared:

States with the Highest Smoking Costs

42. New Jersey
43. Minnesota
44. Alaska
45. Hawaii
46. Maryland
47. Rhode Island
48. New York
49. Massachusetts
50. Connecticut
51. Washington, D.C.

States with the Lowest Smoking Costs

1. Georgia
2. Mississippi
3. Missouri
4. North Carolina
5. Alabama
6. South Carolina
7. Tennessee
8. Kentucky
9. Idaho
10. Louisiana