The fact that there are several different reasons proposed for tapping cigarrettes prior to smoking them does not necessarily mean that all smokers are doing so just because they’ve always done it thus, inventing reasons to justify the practice after the fact. In my own experience, several of the reasons given (including blind habit) are valid.
I used to smoke a brand of “light” cigarette called “Now” that, presumably to reduce the amount of nicotine (I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here), had very little tobacco in each cigarette, packed very loosely. Just flicking one’s ash could send much of the tobacco (and the burning ember) cascading from the end of the smoke. This flaming debris invariably (or so it seemed) landed on something flammable, difficult to clean, or both.
Tapping the cigarette compacted the tobacco so it would not fall out. The Now brand was so loosely-packed that if you tapped the pack vigorously before opening it, the tobacco would be compressed so much you found yourself staring at between ½ and ¾ of an inch of paper tube at the end of said fag.
At one time I smoked non-filters (a practice I do not recommend unless you enjoy chewing your tobacco as well as smoking it). Packing (tapping the cigarette made the tobacco hold together better, as some in the column claim, and once the tobacco was packed, it was only a matter of preference whether you put the packed end or the exposed paper end in your mouth. If you tend to salivate freely, the packed end works best (wet cigarette paper tends to disintegrate), but the paper end, when crimped, tended to keep the stray bits of tobacco out of your mouth slightly better.
I, too, disliked Cecil’s bland dismissal of tamping tobacco through tapping. The fact people are not sure of why they do a thing does not mean there is no value to doing it.
The main reason asserted for tapping the cigarette is to tamp down the tobacco within the paper tube. Cecil never says whether any appreciable tamping occurs; one of the posters in reply said a measurable tamping did occur. Scientific review of the process would probably have to include determining the amount of packing that occurs, and then determining if it affects the rate and or process of burning the tobacco once lit.
There is as much an element of habit as there is science to cigarette tamping. Remember the old anecdote:
I suspect that many people who tamp their cigarettes do not know why. They have seen others who seem to know what they’re doing do it, and figure it’s the proper way to prepare a smoke.
Tamping has different benefits depending on what type of cigarettes you smoke, how long they have been out of the factory, and how much they suffered the slings and arrows of rough handling during shipping. If you have a pack of name brand smokes fresh from the factory, they may not noticeably benefit from tamping at all. Non-filters need tamping more than filtered cigarettes, and off-brand smokes usually (but not always) benefit from tamping as well.
My advice? Stick to chewing gum. It’s cheaper, easier to quit, and it doesn’t make you cough or smell bad.
I recently started smoking…OK, not that recently but about 6 months ago. Anyway, I experimented quite a bit with packing my cigarettes (marlboro lights and marlboro lights 100s both in hard packs) and here is what I discovered:
Packing just one cigarette on its own does nothing noticable - as far as I could tell it was just like smoking an unpacked cigarette. To make an effective difference to the way the cigarette burns, etc. you have to really pack a whole pack at a time before you take the plastic wrapper off (if you take the plastic off, the whole pack will lose stability and be crushed along with the tips of the cigarettes inside).
I noticed no difference in burning time. However, there was really too much variation in the way I smoked each individual cigarette to determine conclusively if there was a difference. The proper experiment would be to light a packed cigarette and an unpacked on and “race” them in an ashtray without smoking them. It would be even better to hook them up to identical tiny vacuums so that you can see what the difference is with air blowing through them. Of course, since you yourself do the smoking of the cigarette, you should time yourself and see how long it takes you to smoke a packed vs. unpacked cigarette…
The biggest difference has to do with the way the ashes fall from the cigarette. Ashes from an unpacked cigarette fall off very easily, sometimes even while lit. I burned my hand many times smoking unpacked cigarettes because burning embers fell off onto my hand. No permanent damage or anything, but it stings while the tiny coal extinguishes itself on your hand. Unpacked cigarettes are consequently very easy to ash because you only have to tap them lightly one time and all the ashes you want to get rid of fall off (usually along with only a tiny amount of still burning tobacco though “the cherry” is much more likely to fall off of an unpacked cigarette)
A packed cigarette does not shed (as many) burning embers, in fact hardly any at all in comparison - the difference for me was about 1 burn per pack of cigarettes vs. 1 burn per cigarette. Nobody else I know has a problem with burning themselves from cigarettes like I do so I’m sure it has a lot to do with the way I ash my cigarettes and/or the way i smoke them. Anyway, I also found that the ash stays on packed cigarettes a lot better than on unpacked ones. Typically to ash a packed cigarette you have to roll the ashed end against the ash tray rather than just tap it, and in the process it’s easier to break the cherry off.
In conclusion I personally think it is better to pack the cigarettes, but not to overpack them. Overpacked cigarettes have a tendancy for the cherry to fall off or to be too difficult to get the ashes to fall off. Underpacked cigarettes drop burning embers which burn my fingers.
Many that live deserve death. And many that die deserve life! Can you give it to them? Then do not be so quick to pass out death in judgment for even the wise cannot see all ends…