To "blue collar" types, drinking a couple $7 craft beers on a weekend is elitist and pretentious, but spending $50 per week on cigarettes is just being a regular guy. I could drink a glass of good scotch every evening for the same amount that a lot of people spend on their smoking habit, yet the scotch is considered by many to be hoity toity while the cigs are not.
Why isn't smoking seen as a lavish display of excess?