I always figured it was to compact the tobacco, which sometimes seems to get loosened up a bit from riding around in the pack. Cecil did a column on this, which got many replies, and there were quite a few various, and often contradictory, reasons proposed.
**
Once upon a time there was a more or less standard length of cigarettes, and then a longer size was introduced. It was called king-sized. It allowed a modern-length filter (as opposed to a cork tip) while retaining about the same amount of tobacco. Of course, king-sized cigarettes were often offered in filtered and unfiltered versions, with the unfiltered obviously having more tobacco. After many decades, king-size became the new standard, and that’s what the overwhelming majority of todays cigs are. The last genuine regular (noticeably shorter than 99% of what you see) cigarettes I saw were Camels, unfiltered of course (I imagine they might still be available, but I don’t know). Anyway, although today’s cigs are technically king-size, almost everyone considers that the normal length and calls them regular.
Then a number of years ago, some marketing genius dreamed up 100’s, which are longer than king-size. As mentioned above, their length is 100 mm. King-size are about 87 mm, I believe.
Also, I’ve heard that pounding railroad spikes into your head looks really cool, and distracts those anti-smoking dogooders from your smoking. Plus you can hang coats and stuff on the spikes, if you pound them in at the right angle, and whenever you set off a metal detector you can give the wageslave with the wand a blank stare and go, “What?” Total crackup.
Well then I guess it would be innappropriate to tell of my mother in law who recently died gasping for air that would not fill her emphyzema ravaged lungs until she died terrified with her eyes open.
I also will not tell you about the guy next door who’s widow I cut the grass for since he was incapacitated by a morphine drip to ease the pain of dieing of lung cancer.
I also will not ask him if his college grat boy buddies will cut the grass for his widow when he is incapacitated by smoking related disease.
I will also not tell him how I worked a contract at Phillip Morris and it was full of the most unhealthy looking people ever assembled under one roof.
I will also refrain from telling him almost every 50 year old, pack a day smoker trying to quit started off as a young guy trying to be cool who swore he would only have a couple every day, and maybe a few when he was drinking…
What I think is really cool about it is those folks who can breathe through a hole in the throat, and get to talk into that thing that makes their voices sound like Darth Vader.
You go, Sonny boy; 100s, regular, lite, menthol, it doesn’t make one little difference. The end result is the same: money out of your pocket; money into their pockets; and you get to be somewhat of a social outcast.
By the way, cut the number of chicks who are going to be interested in you by at least half. So if you’re not all that successful now, you’re going to be talking to the hand quite a lot.
I just quit a few months back cold turkey after a pack a day for 10 years. I started in high school for pretty much the same reasons you are. I tell you straight from the heart, don’t start, it ain’t worth it.
First I’d like to point out that I didn’t start smoking “to be cool”. I started smoking because I tried it one night when I was drunk, and the buzz was really enjoyable, and now I like to smoke once in a while. I know that this is how it all starts, people in my fraternity who are heavy smokers tell me this all the time. It isn’t about peer pressure, but about me.
Being a smoker opens a whole new world of gestures and expressions. There are so many examples I could name. When there is a party going on and I don’t really feel like making an effort to meet a bunch of people who I wont remember the next day or maybe I want to take a break, I can now go out for a smoke, and not look like a loner, but look like I am actually doing something and am deep in thought. You know the look I am talking about, that staring deep off into space look that only a smoker can make without looking like someone who is simply anti-social.
Also, its a base for social interaction. I can’t tell you how many guys in my fraternity I have gotten to know better simply for being able to bum off a cigarette and smoke with them. Plus, someone mentioned that I will have trouble getting girls. Quite the contrary, I find that if I am smoking a cigarette, girls will come up to me to ask for one, and smoke with me. It gives them a reason to talk to you, and for you a reason to talk to them.
The reasons for smoking arent all about physical or mental addiction, but rather they are pretty vast. Its a societal thing. It makes you appear laid back and not so uptight. Just the way you stand when you are smoking a cigarette proves this, you know the knees bent, leaned up against a wall stature. It gives you something to do with your hands, making you look like your doing something when you’re really not. Now if theres someone you dont like you can blow smoke in their face, or if you want to look determined to do something, you can take a big last puff and flick the cigarette with haste.
So don’t give me all these warnings about not starting now, because I know what the dangers are and if I fall into an addiction, I can blame nobody but myself. However, as I now stand, I just simply want to know more about the basic stuff concerned with cigarettes.
Oh gawd, please stop. this is the funniest part. To a majority of the people (non-smokers) you don’t look laid back and not so uptight. You look [list=a]
[li]Stupid beyond all belief[/li][li]Like you have an oral fixation[/li][li]Proof that it does not take brains to get into college[/li][/list=a]
But hey it’s your life. Live fast, and die a hacking phlem filled death.
Yup, that’s what I always think, every time I see some fool without a cigarette: Man, I think, he sure is uptight.
Also, dude, memorizing a bunch of bumperstickers makes it seem like you have something to say when actually your brain is rattling around in your skull like a BB in a boxcar.
Plus, if you hang a cell phone off your belt, even if it’s fake, people will think you have friends. You can pretend to answer it every once in a while; tell people it’s on “vibrate.”
I realize that nobody here is going to convince you to quit smoking, but:
Please please please do not do this. It’s adding insult to injury: not only do you give me lung cancer, but you also give me the pleasure of viewing your numerous cigarette butts littering the ground.
I’m lucky. After my grandmother died, my grandfather took up smoking again, pretty heavily, and it was clear to me from a young age that he was doing it to kill himself out of grief for his wife’s death.
Cigarettes have never looked to me like anything beyond a suicide method. I’m not speaking metaphorically, here. They’re what you use to kill yourself if you’re not allowed to admit to yourself what you’re doing.
I was thinking of taking up smoking, but I really don’t like the taste. So I was thinking of starting with the patch to ease myself into it. plagarized from some long forgotten source
The OP asked to cut with the anti-smoke rants, but some of you nitwits just can’t seem to let it go. Fine, you hate smoking. Fine, you think it’s stupid. But show some repect to the requests of the OP.
There is nothing I hate more then the anti-smoker nazi league. Keep your mightier then thou attitude out of this thread. (As was the request in the OP)
Let people do what they want. It is their choice. Smoking as been part of human culture for a long time, and will continue. Either learn to live with it or move to a country where cigarettes, pipes and cigars are illegal and you can group in town centre and burn an effigy of Joe Camel chanting “2nd hand smoke? What about the children?”.
I think he asked some valid points about the differences in cigarettes. Either answer them or repect the OP’s request and shut it.
If you really want to look “cool”, and also get the “high” of nicotine- without the dangers of lung cancer- why not try what Ellis said- cigars- or even pipes. They certainly have a better “taste”, cigars say “rich (addicted) dude” and pipes say “thinking (addicted) dude”. Cigs just say “addicted dude”. They cost more, so you are unlikely to smoke as much. My Dad could also suck on an unlit pipe and get most of the “fix” he needed. Not to mention good pipe tobacco (and really good cigars) doesn’t smell anywhere near as nasty as cigs do. So, when your "brothers’ light up, you’ll still have something to do, and they will admire you for your “maturity”.
Note that cigars and pipes are not “safe”- just “safeR”. It is pretty easy to remove a mouth cancer, as opposed to lung cancer. :rolleyes: Also, it seems that being an “occasional” smoker is much easier with cigars & pipes, as opposed to cigs. Cigs are designed to be a drug delivery system, all sorts of things are added to enehance & control you “fix”. Thus, it is less likely that you will get “hooked” if you stay with cigars.
I’ll also note that now smokers are in the minority. And that you are in college where the “mating game” is nearly as important as learning. And that non-smokers rarely date smokers. Thus, dude, you cut out 50>60% of the female population right there. Dammit, dude, if the above health arguements don’t sway you (and why shoudl they, your young & immortal, right? :dubious:) that one should. Altho- to give the devil his due- Sonofarizona is correct in that smoking does give one an “in” to meet other smokers.
“Packing” is really done mostly to look “cool” and make dudes pay attention to you- since smoking is pretty silent, and packing makes noise.
Menthols are also heavily marketed to our Black brethren.
Cool thing about cigars is that there are whole magazines devoted to them. Read a couple, and you can sound experienced. They have a “mystique”.
I hope my post actually answered your query to some extent without being too preachy on the 'evils".
If you are gonna smoke (which seems to be the decision you have made) the only ‘advice’ i can offer (other than to rethink your position, which for me to give would be hippocracy of the highest level) is to leave a long stub, since the amount of tar and other general crap increases the further down the cigarette you get(according to the government in various public health broadcasts for which i cant find a cite ATM). I smoke about 1 pack a month, generally about 5 at a time, and somehow convince myself that i drink less when I smoke, so it is justified. I think i heard it referred to as cognitive dissonance . I find that rollups taste better and make me fel less bad the following morning.
Seriously though, the best advice i could give you (and me) is STOP NOW, but that aint likely to happen, is it?
