up in smoke
“We had a light bill that needed to be paid, so we paid a third of it so we could have cigarette money,” said Leonard Perry, a pack-a-day Doral smoker from Elkhart, Ind. “We’ve done that a couple times. It kind of works out but it makes it rough for the next week.”
Perry, 55, worked at American Hauler, a cargo trailer manufacturer, before being laid off two years ago. Sometimes he collects scrap metal for cigarette money. "My woman’s workin’, so that helps me out there," he said. But his wife has her own pack-a-day Marlboro habit to support.