Is Running As Profitable As Smoking?

Are you kidding. You gotta be nuts if you think running is profitable compared to smoking. And, speaking of nuts, Altria, the pseudonym for the formerly famous Phillip Morris Company, makers of the world's foremost brand of cigarette - Marlboro (estimated to kill some 75,000 smokers a year in the US) - is going bonkers on the stock market whilst Kraft which it partially spun off several years ago is languishing.

Apparently stockbrokers think products that kill people are sure sellers...and apparently they are right. Altria posted net income of US$10 billion on revenues of $80 Billion.

I cannot even begin to imagine how these numbers dwarf any numbers I could find from any facet of running or the fitness industry in general...and this is just ONE tobacco company.

We are only lucky that the smoking industries' ability to sponsor sporting events was seriously hobbled by the Tobacco Settlements at the turn of the Century. The only thing worse than the ING New York Marathon would have to be the Chesterfield New York Marathon.