Tobacco appreciation thread - Winners never quit, and quitters never win

[Sober the Serg]

I guess it depends where in Norway you are, but tobacco can definitely be grown in Scandinavia. Homegrown tobacco was the raw material for the original Swedish snus, developed as a way of taking tobacco while working in the fields. Tobacco is an extremely heavy feeder and is vulnerable to pests, but if you can keep diseases and insects at bay, you can grow a decent leaf most anywhere in the world. I would suggest you get seeds for a bunch of different cultivars and just transplant a couple of each, that way your first year can be a sort of trial run to see what grows well in your area.

Thanks for the tips. When I get the space and time I'll start testing. It would also be interesting to explore the medicinal properties of the plant.

 

[Nigonidas]

I changed over from pretty heavy vape bro tier use for nicotine pouches. I buy white fox and I like that they're a little moistened when they go in your mouth. Haven't vaped so that's a plus. Better for work too.

 

[Hantavirus]

Thanks for the tips. When I get the space and time I'll start testing. It would also be interesting to explore the medicinal properties of the plant.

Happy growing! Honestly, proper curing is much harder than growing. Air curing is best for snuff and snus, but if you want to make something smokeable or American-style dip/chaw, you need to be able to fire cure and/or flue cure your fresh leaf, especially Virginia and Maryland cultivars. The Fair Trade Tobacco forum has over a decade of material from people doing this, from makeshift flue boxes made from scrap vent pipes to professional barn-size setups. Should all else fail, you can steep your leaf in a bucket of water for a day or so to make a powerful, food safe garden pesticide.

As far as medicinal uses, tobacco (typically in the form of snuff) was commonly prescribed for headaches, as well as used as an aid for wakefulness and concentration. Snuff is still produced in "medicated" blends which include menthol, camphor, and eucalyptus. A pinch of medicated snuff is as good as a Sudafed for clearing the nose and sinuses, and is probably healthier.

I changed over from pretty heavy vape bro tier use for nicotine pouches. I buy white fox and I like that they're a little moistened when they go in your mouth. Haven't vaped so that's a plus. Better for work too.

I strongly suggest you give snus a try. "White" portions are closer to pouches than traditional portion snus is, but if you like a moist pouch, you might enjoy traditional portions. Many of the minty/fruity vape juice flavorings can be found in snus form, and the tobacco adds so much more. The nicotine is released more gradually, but you can still get very strong snuses that will make your head spin. The strongest pouch in the world, Siberia, is actually a white snus with real tobacco, and a single pouch contains about one quarter of a nicotine overdose. Snus still has a pleasant sting but does not burn the gums like pouches do. I have not heard of any cases of gum recession from snus like people get with pouches.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Love smoking. Love rolling my own (Bali Shag and Drum are what I usually use) you get a more robust flavor rolling your own cigs. If I feel like getting a pack, I usually go with American Spirits (regular/teal)

Used to smoke Djarum Blacks back in my goth days. Still salty they were banned in the states. The cigarillos are still here but they don’t taste nearly as good.

 

[Hantavirus]

I can relate, when they banned Djarum Blacks, I had already slowed down my cigarette smoking a lot. I would get Camel Turkish Golds or occasionally a pack of American Spirit Periques. I eventually stopped in favor of pipes and smokeless, but I would probably still occasionally smoke a Djarum if you could buy them at the gas station. If you can find a supplier outside the USA, you can get Djarum Blacks. Word is, they can even be found on deep web marketplaces (I wouldn't know, as tobacco is my drug of choice), but you shouldn't need to go that route. I am still unclear on the exact legality of sending tobacco products by mail--it is definitely not allowed within the US, but nobody seems to have a problem getting packages from Sweden loaded with kilograms of snus.

 

[Maurice Maine]

I can relate, when they banned Djarum Blacks, I had already slowed down my cigarette smoking a lot. I would get Camel Turkish Golds or occasionally a pack of American Spirit Periques. I eventually stopped in favor of pipes and smokeless, but I would probably still occasionally smoke a Djarum if you could buy them at the gas station. If you can find a supplier outside the USA, you can get Djarum Blacks. Word is, they can even be found on deep web marketplaces (I wouldn't know, as tobacco is my drug of choice), but you shouldn't need to go that route. I am still unclear on the exact legality of sending tobacco products by mail--it is definitely not allowed within the US, but nobody seems to have a problem getting packages from Sweden loaded with kilograms of snus.

They have Djarum Blacks here and they're garbage. Gudang Garam is the only good clove sold in my market.

 

[Hantavirus]

They have Djarum Blacks here and they're garbage. Gudang Garam is the only good clove sold in my market.

Do they have real Djarum Blacks in your country? The problem is once the flavor bans started hitting the West in the early 2000's, the kretek makers changed the formula just enough to qualify as a cigar and didn't bother rebranding. Makes it difficult to tell from a website whether they have the "cigars" or the real kreteks. Of course, maybe my tastes have changed and I would hate them now; I haven't tried one since right after the ban, but I quite enjoy clove nasal snuff.

Null's talk of his 501(c)4 has got me thinking about the potential for a tobacco user's advocacy group. There have been a few efforts on that front before, but from the limited info I can find, it seems like they were mostly just fig leaves for the tobacco industry to pour vast amounts of money into opposing indoor smoking bans, flavor bans, Tobacco 21, tax hikes, etc. On the other hand, with the massive surge in vape users and increased opposition to indoor vaping (vapes are included in many indoor smoking bans now), there could be an opportunity for a grassroots movement to loosen restrictions on our beloved herb.

 

[Maurice Maine]

Do they have real Djarum Blacks in your country? The problem is once the flavor bans started hitting the West in the early 2000's, the kretek makers changed the formula just enough to qualify as a cigar and didn't bother rebranding. Makes it difficult to tell from a website whether they have the "cigars" or the real kreteks. Of course, maybe my tastes have changed and I would hate them now; I haven't tried one since right after the ban, but I quite enjoy clove nasal snuff.

Null's talk of his 501(c)4 has got me thinking about the potential for a tobacco user's advocacy group. There have been a few efforts on that front before, but from the limited info I can find, it seems like they were mostly just fig leaves for the tobacco industry to pour vast amounts of money into opposing indoor smoking bans, flavor bans, Tobacco 21, tax hikes, etc. On the other hand, with the massive surge in vape users and increased opposition to indoor vaping (vapes are included in many indoor smoking bans now), there could be an opportunity for a grassroots movement to loosen restrictions on our beloved herb.

I don't have the parameter of 'real' and I'm not willing to go to Indonesia to find out. Djarum in my opinion tastes like you're inhaling tasteless smoke but with a small hint of sweetness. And I've never seen anyone else smoke a Djarum while Gudang is quite popular (ain't a scene kid thing like in the US). Sad thing about Gudang is that it's only made in shitholes like Paraguay, Indonesia and India. They bring it here via contraband and since they're grey market there's no price chart. They know it's good because they overcharge. 40 reais for a pack of Gudang which roughly is $6.65. You might think: oh, that's cheap! But the average Paraguay import (Eight, Gift, San Marino) is about 50 US cents. And quality control isn't a thing with those questionable imports. Still, PM sells their Marlboro for $1.66 (10BRL) and if you're hard up and just want a damn cigarette that'll do the job and won't kill you, cheapest options are the Chesterfield 'Terras' from PM and Rothman's from the local Souza Cruz. Chesterfield is a weaker Marlboro and Rothman's is literally a Paraguay cigarette but made in Brazil. They both cost $1.08 which runs about 6.5BRL. Smoking is cheap in Brazil but you get what you pay for. I don't know if US cigarettes are any better since they don't really make tobacco anymore (all imported) because of bullshit government overreach. I am of the thought vapes are literally the devil and will make you keel over fast. Rod Serling was using the good shit in his day and he lived to 50. That's good enough, right? With vaping I feel you'll live to 35.

 

[Jean des Esseintes]

I'm still mourning the death of Nat Sherman. Hint of mint was one of the best cigarettes ever made. It literally tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream. RIP. These days I mostly just stick to zyn smooth 6mg or occasionally a Romeo y Julietta mini cigar.

 

[Hantavirus]

I don't have the parameter of 'real' and I'm not willing to go to Indonesia to find out. Djarum in my opinion tastes like you're inhaling tasteless smoke but with a small hint of sweetness.

Sounds like you have either the made-for-Amerimutts cigars or some gnarly counterfeits! At least you have a brand that's palatable, we have none thanks to the flavor ban

I am of the thought vapes are literally the devil and will make you keel over fast. Rod Serling was using the good shit in his day and he lived to 50. That's good enough, right? With vaping I feel you'll live to 35.

I think if they are well made and the juice uses only safe flavorings, glycerin, and propylene glycol, they are probably a lot healthier than cigarettes. The pneumonia/popcorn lung issues were traced back to Vitamin E in illegal counterfeit THC vapes if I remember correctly. There's no question they are not good for you, anyone who has quit and is still coughing up cookie dough phlegm a month later can tell you that, but I don't think they are worse than cigarettes, especially the modern light types with the perforated filters, which most people draw deep into their lungs.

I'm still mourning the death of Nat Sherman. Hint of mint was one of the best cigarettes ever made. It literally tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream. RIP. These days I mostly just stick to zyn smooth 6mg or occasionally a Romeo y Julietta mini cigar.

Can't say I ever smoked one, but it's always a shame when a tobacco product people enjoyed is discontinued or a company goes out of business. The snuff industry has lost three snuffmakers in the last two years: the largest and most popular makers of Indian snuff (Dholakia) and Continental schmalzlers (Bernard), as well as an internationally beloved small business (Rosinski's). At least in the US, the regulatory process to bring a new tobacco product to market is so expensive and onerous that it is only really done for the very largest categories (e.g. American dip), and the tobacco companies seem to be betting the farm on tobacco-free nicotine products like pouches and vapes while slowly paring down traditional tobacco to only the most popular and profitable varieties.

With the overturning of the Chevron case that essentially allowed federal agencies to write their own laws and then make their own pocket courts to enforce them, I wonder if there is any interest in challenging the authority of the government to restrict tobacco the way they do. I guess Big Tobacco is worried about their PR, which is why they are leaning so hard into "harm reduction" alternatives, but what's so wrong with providing tobacco to consumers? We know what we're getting, we know the risks and we still want it.

 

[Clem Fandango]

I just remembered something. Did you know you can smoke on the Shinkansen trains in Japan? It's awesome, they have this little smoking room with a viewing window you can look out of. Makes you feel like you're in the 1960s, the combination of this super high tech train going 200mph but you can also light up a cig, lol.

Update on this:
I'm going back to Japan this month and was looking forward to visiting the shinkansen smoking room again, but I just read that they banned smoking on all trains last year :-/

Why can't we have nice things?

In other news, I was in Vietnam recently, and fags are suuuuper cheap there. I got these thin menthol ones called "Saigon" for 17,000 VND per pack. That's less than a dollar!

 

[ForgedBlades]

 

[Hantavirus]

Every time I think I can't like Tucker more, I see him do something that boosts my opinion of him even more. Corn syrup, GMOs, hydrogenated vegetable oils, carcinogenic chemical food dyes, parabens, phthalates, microplastics, all have appeared in our food since the beginning of the smoking cessation campaigns. People lead sedentary lives at a record rate, over half the US is overweight or obese, diabetes is rampant, and we have more cancer and heart disease than we did when everyone smoked. Nobody bats an eyelid at people who eat nothing but junk food and takeout all day every day (okay maybe that is changing a little bit, but still). Yet you are a pariah, banished to a cancer closet if you're lucky, but more likely outside like a dog, to take your cigarette breaks.

I am fortunate enough to live in a state that does allow smoking in most buildings if the owner/proprietor allows it, but good luck finding a place that won't kick you out for lighting up. I dream of opening a tobacconist shop one day; I would love to have a smoking lounge too. They exist in my area, but only in the cities...

 

[dcss]

6mg black cherry zyns + Diet Coke is a combo straight from heaven