The U.S. federal government [central government] puts a huge tax on cigarettes [some other tobacco products like cigars, cigarillos, chew, dip, snus are taxed much less]. Individual state governments put an additional tax. There's a POS [point of sale] tax, and some municipalities like NYC have the right to add their own tax, and they do.

Where I live in Boston, name brand cigarettes can cost anywhere from around 6 dollars to 8-10 dollars a pack for the real foo-foo brands. But, you can but these things called 'Little Cigars' which are cigarettes wrapped in tobacco sheet product rather than paper, and are a little heavier than cigarettes,but have a filter and are roughly the same size as cigarettes, at around 2-2.50 a pack. You can also get tobacco products online from Indian reservations [tribal land] very cheaply, because they are semi-autonomous territory inside the United States. Roll your own is also very cheap.

There's also a big black market in cigarettes in NYC and elsewhere.