Others produce final tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, snuff, and smoking tobacco. Total U.S. consumption of tobacco products in 1995, including overseas armed forces, was 485 billion cigarettes, 2.3 billion large cigars and cigarillos, 14.7 million pounds of pipe and smoking tobacco, 61.8 million pounds of chewing tobacco, and 62 million pounds of snuff. Within the different segments, manufacturers provide a wide variety of brands and styles to meet consumer preferences. U.S. Department of Commerce data in 1992 indicated that wages for tobacco manufacturing employees were significantly higher than in many industries. Direct Jobs Direct Compensation Wholesalers or distributors in each of the 50 states buy finished tobacco products and sell them to exporters and domestic retailers.
Retailers are the final link in the chain from tobacco growers to the ultimate consumers.
Other retail outlets include department stores, variety stores, discount clubs, delicatessens, meat and fish markets, restaurants, bars and taverns, drug stores, liquor stores, gift shops, novelty stores, souvenir shops, tobacco stores, newsstands, and vending machines. The cultivation of tobacco, combined with the manufacture and distribution of products, results in ongoing purchases of goods and services from every leading industry. Industries supplying information technology, fertilizer, rubber, leather, fabricated metal, electricity, water and gas also had significant sales to the tobacco industry. Like the ripples from a stone thrown in a lake, the activities of the tobacco industry create waves of economic benefits that flow continuously into almost every segment of the American economy. A multiplier effect occurs when dollars paid by tobacco growers, manufacturers, retailers, and distributors are, in turn, spent by suppliers to buy needed goods and services from yet other companies.