The economic downturn has folks scaling back a bit -- in quality or quantity -- on the guilty pleasures of smoking, drinking and gambling.
"I always go for the three-pack deal and always go for the specials," said Stephanie Lipford, 24, of West Deer, recently on a smoke break outside the Everest Institute in downtown Pittsburgh. She has cut her four- to five-cigarette pack-a-week habit to three packs since the beginning of the year.
Pennsylvania cigarette and malt beverage tax collections are down while liquor sale tax collections are up, said Stephanie Weyant, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue's spokeswoman.
"If you think about what purpose vices serve, they are to give us immediate pleasure, give us a bit of an escape and they're coping mechanisms," said Mary Jo Loughran, assistant professor of psychology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
With a flagging economy, record unemployment, threats of more joblessness, record home foreclosures, and fears of even more home foreclosures, many are tense, uncertain about the future and trying to cope.
People turn to their vices more as stress increases.
"These are immediate and within people's daily grasp and they're socially sanctioned," Loughran said.
People tend to use their vices more to manage pain.
"Most people who use a vice don't do it to feel good," said David Palmiter, a Marywood University psychology professor and the American Psychological Association's public education coordinator. "They do it to stop feeling bad."
The economy's uncertain state also may help people rationalize indulging in vices.
"I don't get to go to the Caribbean this year, but I can still afford my $10 bottle of wine," Loughran said.
Tom Bower, owner of Chocolate and Chances in Pittsburgh, says lottery and chocolate sales are down a bit, but cigarette sales, which make up a very small portion of his business, are better than ever.
"When the economy (downturn) started, everybody that quit smoking started again," he said, jokingly. "A lot of people give up candy for Lent and a lot of people give up lottery for Lent, but nobody quits smoking for Lent."
In general, lottery sales were good for February because the Powerball jackpot reached $174.4 million.
"When it hits $100 million, that's when the office pools kick in and everybody plays, especially now because of the economy," Bower said.
Charles Norton, portfolio manager of USA Mutuals' Vice Fund in Dallas, which globally invests in alcohol, tobacco, gaming, aerospace and defense industries, said globally, the economic downtown is having virtually no impact on tobacco companies.
"People smoke and drink around the world in good times and bad," Norton said.
E-mail L.A. Johnson at ljohnson(at)post-gazette.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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