Smoking on the Cheap: A Review

I've been smoking the same brand for 9 years: Camel Lights. They're $9.50 at my cornerstore, so I spend about $50-60 on cigarettes every week. I've thought about switching brands, try to save some cash, but I just can't bring myself to do it. But what if I had to smoke on the cheap? I wanted to explore the options that would be available to me. All ratings factor in the dynamic between quality and price.

The first trial was USA Gold "Full Flavors." USA Golds are a discount cigarette brand, usually sold for a couple bucks cheaper than the standard Marlboros and Camels, so you're still looking at about $7 dollars a pack in the New York metropolitan area. USA Golds are manufactured by "Commonwealth Brands," a quiet company that's been on the rise ever since the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, mainly because of their focus on discount cigarettes.


The first thing you notice when lighting up is the bitterness of the smoke. It's the kind of bitterness that cleanses the palate; not entirely unpleasant. While the quality gap between these and the premium brands is noticeable, it isn't completely distracting. With a little imagination, you can picture these as stale Marlboro Reds. Not ideal, but workable. However, I would predict that longterm consumption of USA Golds will lead to a nasty smoker's cough.

Rating: 12 cigarettes out of twenty.

My next adventure was with Criss Cross tobacco. Now, Criss Cross is an interesting animal because it is marketed as pipe tobacco. Pipe tobacco smoke is extremely unpleasant to inhale, not unlike cigars -- at the very least, you'll feel nauseous. However, the rumor is that although Criss Cross is virtually the same as other rolling tobaccos, they market it as pipe tobacco to avoid paying certain taxes. And it certainly is cheap -- a 16 ounce bag roughly costs $15 (for comparison, the bags of rolling tobacco that you find in bodegas are around 1.3 ounces for $7-9), making Criss Cross one of the cheapest cigarettes options out there.


When smoking Criss Cross, it's hard to silence that little voice in the back of your head whispering, "You shouldn't be smoking this." And while I did not feel nauseous, I wasn't exactly enjoying myself. Criss Cross is very sweet but it's the kind of sweetness that permeates your entire mouth and throat, reminiscent of a sugar substitute. Simultaneously, the tobacco is quite harsh; when it hit the back of my throat I felt like I had been punched in the neck. I couldn't even bring myself to smoke the whole thing.

A bit of research online reveals multiple complaints of human hair found in bags of Criss Cross; I think I could taste it. I'm going to avoid Criss Cross in the future, but it's hard to complain about the price tag.

Rating: 7 cigarettes out of twenty (Again, this rating is a reflection of the ratio of price to quality. Under normal circumstances, I'd give it about a 3.)

To truly explore all low-cost options, I forced myself to scavenge tobacco. Now, at first I was tempted to use my own filled ash tray, but that wouldn't be legit. Instead, I collected a number of cigarette butts off of the street. I tried to find butts with at least a portion of tobacco untouched by flame -- despite Lucky Strike's claim "toasted" tobacco isn't exactly pleasant. After collecting enough, I rolled up a cigarette and gave it a go.


Now, it's hard to be objective about this method, if only because of its novelty for me. Combining tobacco from four different brands (Marlboro, Parliament, Newport and Camel) is an adventure in and of itself, and when this tobacco was found on the street -- well! I have to say, however, that I was pleasantly surprised. Luckily, the butts I found weren't particularly old so I didn't notice any staleness. And while I'm not usually a fan of menthol, having just a hint of it was as pleasant as a spring breeze.

Obviously, there are many variables with this method -- the types of cigarettes found, their freshness, the amount of unspoiled tobacco in each -- and I imagine that over time, one would get quite fed up with the collecting and processing of discarded butts. Given all of this, however, I still enjoyed the cig immensely.

Rating: 15 cigarettes out of twenty.

Not Smoking...The Divine Pain

First off, I'd like to share the wonderful Disney cartoon above, made in 1951. It stars Goofy and is -- at least ostensibly -- an anti-smoking cartoon, although personally I have my doubts. The foibles of smoking are so loveably recreated that I can't escape the suspicion that the entire creative team was puffing as they drew. Goofy attempts to quit, but (spoiler alert!) just can't bring himself to do it.

His failed attempts to procure tobacco while he is "nic-fitting" (I don't think I've used that phrase since high school) will be instantly relatable to smokers. What is glossed over, however, is the perverse enjoyment that smokers (can) receive from just such a predicament.

We have all had to go for stretches of time without smoking; some enjoyable, some not so much. The knowledge that you will be sans nicotine for 6+ hours during an uncomfortable flight is enough to spawn a minor panic attack, but holding off on a smoke break during a family get-together for Easter (don't want to explain to your little nephew what you're doing) can be exquisite torture.

Holding off on temptation, teasing yourself with the possibility of succumbing, excites you. Even now as I write, my throat is itching, truly itching, for tobacco smoke. The knowledge that I will sate my desire momentarily makes that itching pleasurable, even erotic.

The pay-off will be, and always has been, immensibly enjoyable. But it's the waiting, the itching, the foreplay, that makes it oh-so-much better.

The Intimacy of Smokers, Then and Now

In my last couple posts, I've talked about the role cigarettes played in creating communities in my life. For those of us who started young, who stole cigarettes from parents and skulked in convenience store parking lots, a smoking buddy was a partner in crime. The fact that we were engaging in taboo behavior(as mild as it was) only brought us closer together.

Once you get a bit older, that intimacy starts to fade. You get a driver's license, cigarettes are easier to acquire, finding a time and place to smoke no longer requires cunning and intricate planning. What was once a social activity by necessity now becomes solitary.

This might be starting to change. In the last ten years, smoking has been banned from restaurants and bars, cigarettes are twice as expensive as when I started, and there are murmurs of banning smoking from public spaces. Smoking has become a moral issue and subsequently smokers are ostracized. Life has become harder for smokers, and it's resurrecting the ghosts of my youth.

Not long ago I visited the town where I grew up, the tony suburb of Princeton, New Jersey. Armed with cigarettes but with neither matches nor a lighter, I was at the mercy of my fellow Princetonians. Walking block after block in downtown, I was dismayed to realize that smoking was simply out of fashion here.

After twenty minutes, I finally found a fellow smoker. He lent me his lighter and moved on but, just briefly, I felt that old commiseration once again.