Saturday Smoke

| January 18, 2025

Or not, if Biden has his way.

The Biden administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took a significant new step on Wednesday that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of those with lower levels of nicotine.

Kiss those traditional  Marlboros and Winstons good bye… the he-man’s cigarette of choice is gonna be a low nicotine, low-tar, probably low-taste smoke that identifies itself as real tobacco (but is as much real tobacco as a Elizabeth Warren is a real full-blooded Native American.)

“Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a proposed rule that, if finalized, would make cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products minimally or nonaddictive by limiting the level of nicotine in those products. If finalized, the United States would be the first country globally to take such a bold, life-saving action to prevent and reduce smoking-related disease and death,” the FDA said in a statement on Wednesday.

The FDA’s press release states that “the proposed rule would not ban cigarettes or any other tobacco products,” and instead “cap the nicotine level at 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco in cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products, which is significantly lower than the average concentration in these products on the market today.”

I gave up many decades ago, but in those days Carlton and Merit were the preferred cigarettes of people who didn’t like to share their smokes. NO BODY (other than a fella in my first German unit who would tear off their filters and therefore get some serious nicotine) wanted to smoke flavorless cardboard.

Fox News Digital reported earlier this month, when the rule cleared an FDA regulatory review, that if nicotine levels in cigarettes are lowered under federal regulation, experts say cartels running black market sales of cigarettes will likely benefit.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons to organized crime cartels with it, whether it’s cartels, Chinese organized crime, or Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking, and it’s going to make the streets more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the current chair of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News Digital earlier this month.

Just what we need – another drug passed into the control of the cartels. Face it, Americans are too damn stupid to look in a mirror and say “gee, if we didn’t quit TAKING drugs those evil cartels wouldn’t have a market to sell to, would they?” And how may hard-core smokers do you see fail to give up? There is a reason why Mr. Twain was right when he said “Giving up smoking is easy – I’ve done it hundreds of times.” And because of that, we can probably expect old time cigarette smuggling rising again.

I can’t be the only one seeing the irony of them making traditional cigarettes illegal – and pot legal?

Funny thing… they keep saying ‘it’s for your own good’ – tired of that phrase yet? Seems like any time the word “control” comes up, it’s never really about control of what they say it is – it’s control of YOU.

 

Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Biden

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President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

I may start growing (at least trying) tobacco in my backyard. Just a small patch. I don’t smoke, but I’m sure there would be a decent market for small batch home grown stuff. Just enough to keep me in pocket change.
See? There’s always a way around Gooberment regulations.

Last edited 1 month ago by President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande
Retired Grunt

That is exactly what’s happening to the less than expected MARYJUWANNA money in the states that legalized a lot of personal growth plants. Mom and pop pot dealer can sell cheaper than the state can tax. Lol…. I think it’s hilarious. They completely sold the public on this vice tax windfall that’s getting drug down by the way the wrote the law. No one is enforcing the tax portion as far as I can tell. It’ll be the same if the keep pushing the magic mushrooms… once you open the flood gates. Oh well.

Marine0331

Speaking of Mary Juwanna, is it just me or do any of you smell dope every time you drive on the road today? I swear, it seems like unless I’m on the highway, I smell pot at least once a day if I am driving.

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Grow rustica tobacco. Very hardy (no chems needed) and it is very flavorful and full of nicotine.

26Limabeans

Reminds me of the lowering of Octane ratings to the point
where even a lawnmower needs additives.

MustangCryppie

I’m torn about the whole smoking argument. I’m all for individual rights, but I watched my father die from emphysema. Lived the last 10 years of his life not being able to catch his breath. Yes, it was that bad.

And I was an idiot who smoked two packs a day until I was 43. Luckily I was able to stop, but still years after quitting, I got a visit from the “Big C”. I was VERY lucky and now have been cancer free for quite a few years, but I wish I had never ever started the habit.

What did I gain from smoking? Nothing, but to each his own. Just don’t make me pay for your cancer treatment.

However, what will this BS from Biden end up doing? Some people will quit, but many will just double their smoking…or as in the article go the way of illegal smokes?

Frankly, I just wish that tobacco would disappear from the face of the earth.

Anonymous

People will just smoke more– more tar, etc.– to get nicotine.

Daisy Cutter

The original Marlboro man was gay.
Come to where the flavor is, suck on it, take it all in.

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Some Brit – Fancy a fag, mate?

MarineDad61

Daisy Cutter,
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Seinfeld)
Jump to 4:00,
when Kramer becomes the Marlboro Man on Times Square.

HT3

Never got into cigarettes. The tax-free Marlboros were a HUGE oversees because Euro cigs are apparently like smoking a bone. Guys in the berthing would tuck cigs & lighter under their mattresses and light-up before their feet hit the deck in the morning. I never liked that. My son tells me smoking is verboten except in a couple of designated smoking pits, and that goes for vapes which is more popular than butts amongst the kids my boy’s age.

Hack Stone

Hack Stone has a few sea stories regarding GI’s and tobacco.

First up was circa 1985. Drunk idiot Jarhead falls asleep in his rack while smoking. Wakes up to find the mattress on fire. Pours a soda on it, drags the mattress downstairs. By the time he gets to the 1st deck, it blazes up again.

Prior to that, Hack checked into 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion. There was a BEQ that was uninhabitable due to fire damage. It seemed that one of the occupants liked to smoke, but did not like to empty the trash in his room before departing for work. He placed the trashcan, with hot cigarette ashes in it, inside his locked wall locker. You know the rest of the story.

Hack Stone

Hack saved the best for last. He dates anyone to top this one.

Maybe 1999, possibly early 2000, 7th Comm Battalion Camp Hansen. Young hard charging Marine liked to smoke. He lived on the 1st deck, but found it too much effort to the twenty or thirty feet to exit from the center back door of the barracks to get to the “smoke shack”, a gazebo maybe twenty feet behind the barracks, so he would just climb out the window of his BEQ room. And this became a habit of his. Which was not a problem. Until one night he and his fellow Marines went out to Kinville and stimulated the local economy. They got back to the barracks, but hey, let’s keep this party going. They continue drinking, he falls asleep, wakes up, wants to smoke a cigarette, so he opens the window, and climbs out. But he is not in his room. He is in his buddy’s room. And his buddy does not live on the 1st deck. Can’t remember if the guy lived on the 2nd or 3rd deck, but for the next few months, Marlboro Marine was walking around the Battalion with two arms in plaster casts. Hack Stone had the urge to drape some towels over his arms so that he could walk around like a servant handing out towels, but Hack never did. 🥴

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Oops

RGR 4-78

Back around 2003 we made a 0900 fire call to an outbuilding with a smoldering fire.

Arrived on scene and extinguished the dudes butt can that had been smoldering since he had left for work, the cops, always present, became very interested in the fellers’ plants growing in the outbuilding along with several baggies of processed cannabis.

Hate_me

Can’t top those, but smokers in the army will always hold a special place in my heart.

Before any extended field exercise, I’d pack at least a carton each of Marb Red and whatever that big menthol brand was (Newport, maybe? Been a while). For the first few days, I’d just hand out one or two fags (that idiom is the greatest thing England ever gave us) for the occasional bum to suck on, just so they knew I had some.

By day four, they would offer cold hard cash for each one. Somewhere around the start of week two, the inflation would embarrass even ol’ Uncle Joey Bidet; I once sold a pack of Reds for $80 (he’d offered $75, but I claimed I didn’t have change) and a single menthol for $20.

The army taught me many lessons – including basic economics and to limit my drug abuse to just booze.

HT3

1985, my first Med, we were only allowed 2 pack each going on liberty. Marlboros were only $5 a carton in the ship’s store because no tax overseas. Those red & white boxes were better than money in Barcelona & Palma. I didn’t smoke so I just carried 2 packs for my friends.

timactual

Even though I was once one of those desperate smokers I commend your entrepreneurial spirit. I can remember scrounging through butt cans looking for butts that were long enough to light. I was not alone, either.

The menthols were probably Kools, which the soul brothers seemed to favor, or Salems, which also seemed to be a Vietnamese favorite.

And, speaking of bad habits and booze, you may find this entertaining—
https://www.lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/p/piggotup.html

Green Thumb

Awesome.

MustangCryppie

Oh, Lord! I’m still laughing as I write this!

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Vapes and nicotine pouches are most popular amongst the youth.
Nicotine pouches are the most discreet.

HT3

Dip was in short supply on my first Med cruise. Those packs of 10 in the ship’s store were sold as soon they were in stock. Then a few enterprising young sailors would re-sell, and re-sell, and so on. I hated those spit cups everywhere. Shit was NASTY.

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Dip IS nasty, unless you are outdoors.
Nicotine pouches(Zyns) do not require any spitting and are discreet enough to use on parade

SgtM

Joe is just setting Crackhead Hunter up his next business deal, import export. 10% for the Big Guy.

Anonymous

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Green Thumb

Don’t fuck with the Kools!

Claw

8975-00-634-9797 Cigarette, Tobacco (Kool) Tax Paid, King Size

Green Thumb

Although the refined man smokes a Newport Light.

Anonymous

Menthols, baby!
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tom reynolds

I smoked kools until I started coughing up blood after our daily 5 mile run. went back to my trusty Winston’s after that lol

KoB

There are some schools of thoughts/studies that suggest it’s not so much the nicotine that’s bad for you, but more so the chemicals and additives. Had a compatriot that had been smoking unfiltered Pall Malls, two (2) packs a day, since he was a young teenager. He died at age 97. Like others I didn’t smoke cigs until I enlisted and around week 3 of basic. “You not taking a smoke break, Private?” “I don’t smoke, Drill Sergeant.” “Well, then…come with me, I have a little detail for you.” “Damn!, guess I better take a smoke break then.” Being as they were packaged in the C Rats and one could get a carton at the PX for a $1.25 it was an easy habit to acquire. Quitting them was another matter. I still have one now and again just because it tastes good. Prefer a good seegar to just kinda chew on a bit and satisfy what Ann Landers referred as the “oral fixation”. “Nasty habit, Young Man, were you born in a barn?”

I think that the price of smokes now-a-days is more of a deterrent than the health considerations. Locally individual packs are about $10.00, and a big portion of that is the tax. There’s folks still getting busted today running cigs from GA, NC, and KY up north because of the tax difference.

It’s ALWAYS about the control…of We, The People.

26Limabeans

Smoke em if ya got em……

A Terminal Lance Coolie

This tracks with what one of my docs was saying when I took an unplanned vacation in the hospital at the end of November. He literally said he didn’t care if I continued the nicotine, but I damn well better quit smoking.

I quit smoking, and less than a month later kicked the nicotine, too.

Having a minor heart attack has a way of changing perspectives on things.

Cigs here are $10/pack, too, and the WA State sin tax is something like $2 on top of that. That never stopped me, but damn, did the man make a buck off me at a pack a day.

Something about prepare fits here too, I think.

KoB

Prepare…indeed. Many of the “Preppers” blogs talk about stockpiling cartons. And the “Doomsday” books discuss how cigs will become a median of exchange. Did a little dive just for being nosey about the tax rates these days, not sure exactly how accurate this map is and it doesn’t show ALL of the taxes added by various cities nor the state/local sales tax that’s collected. Note that the Federal Tax per pack is $1.01. And the taxes shown by state are PER PACK. Brown and Wlliamson had a major plant in Macon that produced millions of smokes and even the floor sweepers made $25.00 an hour. They shut the whole plant down when the state gov raised the tax by $.25 per pack. Huge plant still sitting empty nearly 20 years later. Georgia got a huge chunk of $ (25 B?) settlement $ that was supposed to go into a fund to fight smoking related disease. Yeah, well it went into the general slush fund for pet projects.

https://assets.tobaccofreekids.org/factsheets/0222.pdf

Hack Stone

Hack Stone was up in Frantic City a few months ago for a concert, and the Hard Rock Casino had a cigarette vending machine selling a smokes for $20 a pack.

As far as locally imposed taxes on tobacco to discourage usage and fund pet projects, that only leads to organized crime finding a new revenue stream to exploit. Wondering how much of that money from untaxed cigarettes is funneled to Hamas?

26Limabeans

You spelled “tunneled” wrong.

Hack Stone

Well played, 26Limabeans, well played.

timactual

A few decades ago, when I was paying twenty-five cents a pack, I visited NYC where vending machines charged fifty cents a pack. I was outraged, and swore I would quit if I ever had to pay that much. Needless to say, I somehow endured the unendurable of multiple such outrages as cigarette prices increased quite a bit before I finally quit.

Green Thumb

Local pub sells packs for something like 15 bucks.

Not a smoker, but damn.

rgr769

Back in the Viet of the Nam during my Vietnam times, a carton of Marlboro’s cost about $2.30. That is 23 cents a pack.

MustangCryppie

1982 in Misawa, Japan, $2.00 a carton. I was amazed.

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

So……people will just smoke x3 cigarettes instead of one get their nic fix.
How is this ‘ healthier ‘ ?

Hack Stone

Just like low flow toilets. 🥴

26Limabeans

When I was kid we had one of those toilets with the tank
mounted up near the ceiling. That thing could flush a full
diaper and take the seat with it if not for the bolts.

timactual

Strongest toilets I ever saw were in my barracks in Germany. You could hear a flush from quite a distance. Reminded me of a jet taking off.

Curious construction, too. the drain was in the front of the bowl, and the rear of the toilet was what I call an “observation deck”; a flat, dry, area where your shit landed and you could examine it unimpeded at your leisure before summoning the torrent that would (hopefully) wash it forward and down into the drain.

I also found that German toilet paper came in two basic textures; sandpaper and waxed paper.

European plumbing was, and may still be, an adventure.

Anonymous

That recycled pink corrugated TP in Germany is a trip. Hell if I knew why they liked the observation deck. Now, they want ban pissing standing up.
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Last edited 1 month ago by Anonymous
MustangCryppie

Yeah, that “sitzpinkeln” thing has been around for a while. My German mother-in-law had a sign in her bathroom ordering you to “SIT DOWN!” Funny thing was that she had actually installed a urinal in the same bathroom. The only urinal I ever saw in a private home! LMAO!

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Cuban toilet paper is a cross between crepe giftwrap paper and emery cloth. Finger breakthrough risk: 60%
And this was just the ‘high end ‘ hotel TP.
Cubanos probably had to make do with newspaper

jeff LPH 3 63-66

We used to find empty lucky stripes green packs on the ground and the first one to stomp on the pack was the winner. Dad used to send me to the candy store with a note for loose cigarettes that the store owner kept in an empty cigar box. We used to call them loosies. I tried one once and the smoke hit my chest like a rock and that was the end of that. One of the Brink’s workers from Syria used to roll his own. The indoor ceiling of the cab ceilings were coated yellow with the smoke stains. I got a truck assigned to me and I had to scrub the stained ceiling off.

E.conboy

Every one I knew who was a smoker died of the big C or heart disease. If you got em, throw em away. Just picture Old Joe or Camel Toe on the pack! They’re getting uglier every day, aren’t they?

Amateur Historian

Yeah, this’ll go about as well as Prohibition did in the early 20th century.

Hate_me

Happiest decade in history. Every citizen was a criminal.

Claw

Roll Yer Own:

8975-00-641-8445 Smoking Tobacco (Bugler)
8975-00-641-8444 Smoking Tobacco (Bull Durham)
9920-66-027-2580 Cigarette Rolling Paper (Zig Zag)

Oh, and just in case any of you were wondering, Prince Albert is still in a can. You can get it two ways:

8975-00-663-6158 Smoking Tobacco (Prince Albert) Tax Free
8975-00-663-6159 Smoking Tobacco (Prince Albert) Tax Paid

Last edited 1 month ago by Claw
jeff LPH 3 63-66

The Prince Albert joke was very popular when I was a kid.

E.conboy

So iz your ol man!

jeff LPH 3 63-66

That ol man saying was very popular also. Thanks for the memory E.conboy.

timactual

Ah, memories. Fortunately they make machines that do the rolling for you, and some can even install filters.

Odie

Hoyt Axton approves.

MarineDad61

In 1980s Germany,
the local European Marlboros tasted awful.
For something that closely resembled American Marlboro
(when the ration card ran out)
West was the closest choice. (advertising) “Let’s go West”.

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rgr769

The harshest cigarette I ever smoked was a German non-filter. I think it was entirely Turkish tobacco. I liked the English fags called Guards.

MarineDad61

rgr769,
These were the smokes that local Germans liked to offer to Americans, then watch them deal with it.

Unknown to me, until today, these were BANNED in 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roth-H%C3%A4ndle

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A Proud Infidel®™

When in the litterbox, I could always tell where and when the French on out post were smoking, those Cauloises and Gitannes smelled much like flaming horse turds! As for the worst menthol smoke I ever had, that would be a Korean brand Pine Tree which was like trying to smoke pine resin!

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

Worse than Indonesian clove cigarettes?

timactual

Benson & Hedges were quite fashionable when I was a lad. A guy I worked for once upon a time smoked Gauloises. One would keep me “satisfied” for quite a while, and I was a Camel smoker.

fm2176

I’ve never so much as tried tobacco. My wife, on the other hand, is a lifelong smoker and has tried quitting quite a few times over the years. As a non-smoker, I think smoking is a disgusting habit. As a smoker, my wife agrees. Her parents were both heavy smokers, and their house reflected this, with a yellowish hue on every surface, and stale cigarette smoke permeating the air. My wife stayed there throughout much of my time in the Army, caring for her parents as their health declined, so my kids would go to school reeking of cigarettes, and I’d feel completely grimy within a few hours of visiting, uhaving to go outside regularly to get some fresh air. For better or worse, it seems that my wife’s current poison–Pall Mall Blues–have the maximum nicotine content proposed by the FDA. It won’t help me when I spend $80+ per carton. As for the military, cigarettes have been largely supplanted in the field by dip and now nicotine pouches like Zyn, and in garrison by both those and vaping. Dip has its own nastiness level… ever have someone leave a dip spit cup or bottle around, especially if it got knocked over or leaked? Zyn and similar products are, I guess, relatively “clean” to non-users. I don’t even know what they are, but my 24-year-old son uses On! religiously, as he can use the pouches at work without anyone noticing. Vaping is more annoying than outright offensive; big clouds of vapor look dumb, but some of it smells okay, even if it’s likely slowly killing those inhaling it. I’m often reminded of a SNL (I think) skit from the early ’90s, when they still had some funny moments. A young woman is bedridden in the hospital, while her chain-smoking mom is next to her puffing away and talking about how she doesn’t know how her daughter could have ever gotten sick, as she’d never smoked a day in her life. I tried a few searches, but couldn’t find it online. It’s probably on one of the VHS recordings in the… Read more »

Hack Stone

Couldn’t find the video you were referencing, so enjoy this one.

A Proud Infidel®™

As an ex-Smoker, precious little irks me like the stench of cigarette smoke, but this? I’m sure that’ll lead to a big underground cigarette market, many Smokers don’t care to quit and will just keep it up. Less nicotine? Like others have said, they’ll just smoke more and ingest more tar into their lungs among other things. Biden WANTS to make himself look good and leave a legacy other than incompetence and failure, but look at the crowd who smokes, it’s mostly lower income people, so that’s who he’s going to hose on his way out.

tom reynolds

New studies are saying nicotine kills every virus known to science and also kills cancer cells. Of course we should trust the science? there’s money to be made here…

Messkit

In the early 90’s, my weapons section did an assist with the Navy boys in San Diego. Seems, the…boat… had been out to sea for an extended time, but the crew could not disembark until my section gave the Oky-doky. Due to the nature of the…boat… the crew had not been allowed to indulge in the ship store wares for at least 2 weeks.

The Captain announced, with glee, that the “smoking lamp is lit!”. I swear, Hiroshima had a smaller mushroom cloud.