Rolling Tobacco Vs. Cigarettes

Smoking is bad for me and the people around me. Everybody clear? Great.

With the obvious now stated, I can get on with explaining why I roll my cigarettes.

I'd never seen rolling tobacco before I met my partner, and like many Americans considered rolling papers to be drug paraphernalia. He's European, which explains a lot - including that he's always rolled his own cigarettes. I had always smoked Marlboro Lights (in a box) and continued to do so for a year before I switched to rolling tobacco. My first awakening came one day when I realized that if I switched to rolling my own, I would spend $300 less per month on smoking. Round one (price) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes clearly goes to rolling tobacco.

When I decided to switch, we made a trip to our local tobacco shop. While the store primarily carried pipes, cigars and weird knick-knacks completely unrelated to smoking, it also stocked rarer cigarettes and a dozen kinds of rolling tobacco. Who knew there were so many different flavors? The beautiful thing about this was that I was able to examine the varieties before buying a few samples of my favorite contenders. Most people I know who smoke regular cigarettes choose their brand pretty quickly and stick with it because it's what they know. Here I was able to compare the varieties without spending a fortune. After choosing two kinds I thought I might like, I took home a sample of each and quickly decided which was my favorite. Round two (choice) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes goes to rolling tobacco.

For the facile price of $19, I was able to bring home 5 weeks worth of my favorite tobacco. Another $8 for the papers, and I was set. Learning to roll took some time, as I was completely inexperienced in the art. For a few weeks, I would practice rolling while watching TV. On the down side, I wasted a lot of papers (sorry, trees). On the upside, when a potential cigarette was a disaster I could take the tobacco out and use it in the next attempt. No waste. After a month, I was so proficient at rolling that I no longer needed to pre-roll my cigarettes. I could roll quickly and easily no matter what I was doing. This presented problem number two - I was sprinkling a trail of tobacco everywhere I went. I soon learned to roll my cigarettes over the tobacco pouch and the mess was taken care of. Round three (ease of use) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes looked like it was going to go to the manufactured cigarettes, but in the end it came out a draw.

Rolling tobacco is not as available as regular cigarettes, so I had to learn to plan ahead. No longer could I stop and any gas station to re stock when I ran out. I started carrying a pouch of tobacco and a pack of papers around with me, and soon learned how much tobacco was enough for a day. But like I said before, I bought 5 weeks worth at a time, so I rarely had to make a trip to the tobacconist. In Ohio, you couldn't buy rolling papers without buying something to go in them, so you had to be sure to get enough papers when you bought the tobacco. In North Carolina, there is no such law so papers are sold nearly everywhere. Still, round four (accessibility) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes goes to cigarettes.

I come from a family of non smokers, and most of my friends and co-workers didn't smoke either. I've always tried to be a polite smoker, but sometimes people follow me. If I stepped outside or went into my office for a cigarette, non-smokers followed. Without fail, every single one of them commented that my cigarettes didn't smell as bad (and sometimes they even said they smelled 'good') as regular cigarettes. One of my assistants had cystic fibrosis, a disease of the lungs. He mentioned that while he couldn't be in the same room as a normal cigarette, my tobacco didn't bother him. Whatever they do to 'normal' cigarettes obviously isn't something good. Round five (non-smoker tolerance) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes goes to rolling tobacco by a mile.

Smoking is a nasty habit, and smokers are routinely regarded poorly. There are good and not so good reasons for this, but it's something smokers have to deal with. Being a smoker is part of my public reputation - when people think of me, they think of me as a smoker. It's the price I pay for having a bad habit. Rolling my own has put a real twist on the 'rep' angle of my smoking persona. People often told me much later that when they first met me, they were shocked when I pulled out a paper and started to roll a cigarette. On seeing my rolling papers on my desk, new employees often were under the impression that our workplace would be very liberal. My boss, intelligent enough to know when not to speak first, saw my papers and tobacco in my office and took the time to examine them thoroughly. In the States, the first impression of the general public is that rolling papers are for marijuana. You can't get away from it. Once they realized that I was smoking legal stuff, people's curiosity took over. If they were smokers, they tried one. If they were non smokers, they smelled the tobacco and sniffed the air. They all asked questions about it. My reputation went from 'a smoker' to 'a quirky personality who rolls her own cigarettes'. Round six (image) of rolling tobacco vs cigarettes goes to rolling tobacco, easily.

And the winner is...obviously rolling tobacco. If you're going to smoke, I highly recommend a trip to a tobacco shop to see what's out there. You might find a few surprises, and it is definitely worth a sniff.