I’m not a smoker, but I’ve noticed that EVERYBODY … I eman EVERYBODY that I know who smokes cigarettes sticks with:
Marlboro.
Camel, or Kamel is you have eyeglasses with square shaped lenses.
Menthol brands, like Newport or Kool.
Generic or discount Indian reservation brand.
I have never seen anyone go into a store, and say “Gimme a pack of Kents” or “Hand me a carton of Pall Malls.”
My question to the smoking masses … does ANYONE here smoke old school cigarettes like Lucky Strike, L&M, Parliament or Chesterfield?
Every once in a while, I step down to cigarillos, but that’s about it. In any case, it’s pure tobacco (cigar or pipe) for me. Paper just gets in the way. If I’m gonna poison meself, I’ll do it straight.
There’s a flyer in all the toilet stalls in my dorm bathrooms about cigarette companies marketing to the 18-24 year old market. It states that something like 80-some% of younger smokers smoke the top three advertised brands - Marlboro, Camel, and Newport - while less than half of older smokers do so. I have no idea what their source on this is, and I don’t feel like going to the bathroom to check, but it makes sense, I suppose, because my generation is a bunch of sheeple, led very strongly by advertising.
My grandma smoked all the cool old brands- Pall Mall, Viceroy. I think it was Viceroy that made a non-filtered cig with a filter painted on the butt!
My brother smokes American Spirit. When I smoked, I was mostly a Benson & Hedges girl, also Mild Sevens when I could get them at our local Asian market.
For a glimpse of a lost art, rent the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral and check out Kristin Scott Thomas deftly and daintily spitting out tobacco bits from her unfiltered cig! The kind of thing Kate Hepburn could have done well.
I used to smoke Salems. At some point they changed them slightly and I didn’t like them anymore, so I switched to Basics Menthol, which are actually pretty good for a off-brand.
Marlboro Menthol Lights frequently come in 2 for the price of 1 promotional packs, though, so lately I smoke those.
Advertising does have an effect on the type of cigarettes people smoke…when I smoked Salems, for instance, they were regarded by other people as “old woman smokes”, as opposed to the Newports or Kools that they preferred, which were “cool” cigarettes. Of course they only smoked those because EVERYBODY else did.
One advantage of smoking less-popular brands is that people aren’t so inclined to bum off of you.
Since they jacked the price of Marlboro Lights to like, 40kr here, I smoke Basic Lights (also by Phillip Morris) for 25kr instead. The only differnce I notice is they are less well made (burn unevenly etc). I guess they make them from the “rough bits” of the leaf they use for Marlboro Lights.
MrsIteki smokes Kent Ultra Light.
When travelling we smoke Gauloises, Dunhill or cutsie little tasty little Davidhoffs.
I started off with British smokes, and the first time I tried a Marlboro I was rather surprised at how damn nasty it was. Ended up giving the rest of the pack away to a co-worker, and going back to my usual brand.
Fast forward a few years, when I was out camping in the middle of nowhere. I ran out of smokes, and my pal offered me a pack of Marlboros from his stash, which I grudgingly accepted out of sheer neediness. By the end of the pack I was converted, and have stuck with them ever since.
Only problem is, when you pull out a pack of Marlboros in the UK, everyone wants to bum one. Later they’ll offer me one of their brand-X smokes, knowing full well I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. Grrrrr!
My cigarette evolution -
Started with Salem’s but after a while got tired of the menthol and moved to Winston’s (guess we’re I’m from. originally), eventually the Winston’s became too much for me and a friend talked me down to Virginia Slims, when VS came out with 120’s I switched to them till we wnet to Italy and I could no longer buy VS 120’s, I tried going back to regular VS lights but they didn’t tast right and since it was easier to buy I type of cigarette, I switched to Marlboro Lights which Hubby was smoking and finally to Marlboro Ultra Lights.
During the original VS phase I also smoked Silks and a few other brands that didn’t make it.
But when I have to bum a smoke, I’m not choosy(choosey).