Sigh. There was a time in life when clove cigarettes brought me great joy.
There was a sign in a bar I used to go to, back before smoking was banned everywhere "No pipes, no cigars, and none of those silly clove things." Cracked me up.
"We're planning to ban any sort of flavored cigarette because anything that tastes good is obviously aimed at kids. But not menthol cigarettes, because too many black people smoke them."
WTF?
3: Perhaps Reverend Wright will be asked for comment.
3: It doesn't make sense as policy, but as politics it does -- cloves and other flavorings are a tiny little powerless niche market, while menthol is a big chunk of the industry.
Yeah, I understand the politics. It's just one of those things that drives me crazy, like when Joe Camel was "obviously" aimed at kids because it was a drawn cartoon, but nobody accused MetLife of using Snoopy to get kids hooked on supplemental life insurance. Y'know, obviously adults don't like sweet flavors in their drugs.
Cloves are the only cigarettes I've ever been able to tolerate. Mmm, delicious bleeding lungs.
It's just one of those things that drives me crazy
Word.
Starting this fall, "flavored malt beverages" can only be sold in the state owned liquor stores. Aaaargh.
Seems to me the bleeding lung thing was a myth -- they're just bad for you like regular cigarettes, or a bit more so in proportion to their deliciousness.
9: wouldn't surprise me. You know how rumors spread... among kids.
When I was a youngster, we smoked bidi's - cigarettes from India wrapped in eucalyptus leaf. Those don't appear to be banned here - they must still be under the radar.
The whole "MICROSCOPIC BARBS WILL TEAR YOUR LUNGS TO SHREDS" is a little too on the nose.
What about liquorice papers for rolling your own? If you sell them separately from the tobacco, can you get away with it?
This is an outrage! I won't stand for this! This is like outlawing [damn, too early to think of a proper analogy]!
It seriously is pretty stupid. Talk about going for the easy target.
Oooon the other hand, it is factually true that only kids smoke Cloves (and, to a lesser degree, Camels). That's more a product of adults being shamed out of it than anything else, though.
I don't think I've ever seen a clove cigarette. I've only read about them on US based things.
(and, to a lesser degree, Camels)
Really? At least half the smokers I know smoke Camels.
I smoked cloves sometimes in hs! And they were banned in the state in which I attended college, so sympathetic friends would mail them to me from NY or MA.
Bad news for the poor old Indonesians.
17: maybe they're better down there.
19: aye. But good news for Kools!
maybe they're better down there
Maybe we've all been smoking them since we were... Hey, wait a minute.
5. More to the point, clove cigarettes aren't widely manufactured in the US.
Although per that article, Philip Morris bought a substantial stake in one of the Indonesian makers of kretek. But not Djarum, which is pretty much the only brand I've seen here.
bpl and I stepped out into the hallway of my apartment yesterday and she said, singsongy, "Somebody's smoking weed." I said, "Is that what that is? I thought it was skunk," and started to go down the stairs, while she stayed put, taking deep breaths.
Dude me and Apo gonna get bpl hiiiiiiigh if you ever show up for a meetup, ogged.
I'm calling bullshit on the whole "menthol masks the taste for beginners" thing. I'm pretty sure menthol cigarettes are what the flatulence of Satan would taste like; how they're so popular among brothers and sisters in the States is really beyond me.
That would be because they are marketed to brothers and sisters in the States.
26: you want to know something even more mind-blowing, brother from the land of the kindest bud? When I first moved to LA, it was faddish to put a little mouthwash in one's bong, so you could get that mentholated taste when smoking weed.
29: That's gnarly, Sifu. We used to rub opium on our rolling papers. It smelled pretty.
30: oh joints with opium are delightful, yes indeedy.
My most notable experience was Cloves was bumming one off a guy at the University of Chicago; just after, we had the following exchange:
"Yeah, X is really one of the most well-renowned Descartes scholars."
"Sorry, who?"
"Descartes. Have you heard of him? He's a French philosopher; he's quite famous, really."
"I meant the professor."
27: But presumably they're marketed to other populations, too.
33: Not really. Much like 40-ounces of malt liquor.
The first time I tried cigarettes was with another first-time smoker, and we had procured ourselves a pack of menthols. We spent the entire time not inhaling, and telling each other how good they tasted.
I have an exceptionally cheap and white friend who smoked menthols because it vastly reduced the chances of people (read fellow graduate students at the U of C) wanting to bum from him.
Now I am thinking about joints with opium. Sure a better use of my time than what I actually have on the docket for today.
I see a lot of older white women smoking menthols, but not older white men nor younger white women.
36: The first time I tried cigarettes was a John Player's Special. At my HS, beginning smokers almost invariably smoked either JPS or Export A Green as part of a mandatory braggadocio phase. Veteran smokers (more than six months) could relax and buy regular DuMauriers.
On a couple of occasions in and immediately-post high school, we procured a pack of Ginseng cigarettes. Never has a more digusting thing been incinerated and inhaled into the lungs. My friend described them as smoking cod.
a mandatory braggadocio phase
I rarely smoke, but I keep Nat Sherman MCDs around for when I do. They do have that nice sweetness, but I'm totally not kidding myself that it isn't also about the way they look.
Apo, you crackhead, no one cares about Snoopy selling Met Life because people arent worried about the nonexistent problem of adolescent life insurance abuse.
If I smoked cloves or whatever Id be ticked; I remember stocking up on Nats when Id visit the US since they werent available in Canadia. It would suck not to be able to get your brand. But duh, in terms of public health, it makes sense to start chipping around the edges. Most people will probably just switch brands, but a few will probably quit.
Which by the way continues to occasionally suck, especially on particularly beautiful days when one would love to be outside annoying non-smokers.
Nobody outside of affected weirdos smokes cloves as a habit; you're getting people to stop doing something they'd stop doing anyhow, and instead of channeling younger outcasts smoking instincts in an utterly pointless direction which -- when they give it up -- will lead to long-term better health outcomes, you're encouraging them to take up real cigarettes younger, and get that much more addicted.
Sign of the times: Nat Sherman has moved out of its flagship Fifth Ave. store to a much less grand place around the corner.
(I was sad when Sobranie stopped selling in the states. Their cocktail cigarettes were/are in a much more elegant palette than the Nat Sherman's, plus how could I now smoke long black cigarettes and reject the triune god?)
Apo, you crackhead, no one cares about Snoopy selling Met Life because people arent worried about the nonexistent problem of adolescent life insurance abuse.
Shut up, hooker. The point is that companies market to adults via cartoons and cutesy animated mascots (Geico gecko, Budweiser frogs, the Exxon tiger) all the time.
The point is that companies market to adults via cartoons and cutesy animated mascots
Yeah, what's up with that?
For that matter, I recently saw a television ad for, I think, an allergy medicine, which used -- and now I don't know what you call it -- fake human-appearing graphically rendered android 'actors.' As in some recent movies. How odd. Surely not cheaper than using human actors to depict going peacefully to sleep, allergy free.
I might be talking myself out of an opinion right now.
46: Of course they do, but it's not completely insane to think that cartoons and cute animal ads also appeal to kids--accidentally, of course.
In any case, it's just bone stupid to worry about the unfairness of banning Joe Camel or Bud MacKenzie. The only damage done by that sort of thing is the way it gives rise to crappy freshman comp papers about how such ads appeal to children and/or how laudable it is of the companies to discontinue them.
48: it's magical!
The one that confuses me is Esurance: the Kim Possible-influened mini-cartoons starring a pink-haired grrl-power superhero, aired extensively during pro football games: what weird-ass customer are they aiming for?
49: especially since "Bud MacKenzie" never existed.
Spuds, Bud, whatever. The stupid goddamn dog. You know perfectly well what I'm talking about.
Watch that B; she'd just ban dogs outright if she thought she could get away with it.
Hi guys! Smoking is bad for you! You should quit!
he nonexistent problem of adolescent life insurance abuse.
Other than it's the gateway drug to balloon mortgage abuse.
Antonio Banderas' Latin lover CGI bee, for. . . whatever allergy medication.
50: what weird-ass customer are they aiming for?
The "aging jock who likes to think he's still cool enough to get with sexy young baristas" market.
what weird-ass customer are they aiming for?
Uninsured anime fans? (I've wondered the same thing.)
43: But it's not like this is step one of N steps towards banning all cigarettes, B. This is a way for politicians to claim they're chipping away at the problem, at no expense to American tabacco companies (in fact, to their benefit; every pack of Djarum not smoked means some fraction of a pack of American cigs smoked by people who won't quit), by infringing the pursuit-of-happiness of recovering goths who like to smoke a clove now and then. Like me, for example.
Not to say that this is the biggest attack on my personal civil liberties I'll see in my lifetime or anything.
29: I tried mouthwash in the bong water back in the day. Can't say I enjoyed it. Of course, that was also around the time that I was reusing bong water, just to see how filthy it could get. My roommate got mad at me for keeping the bong in the dorm fridge because it made the milk taste like bong water. Mouthwash in the bong water did not solve this problem.
every pack of Djarum not smoked means some fraction of a pack of American cigs smoked by people who won't quit
I don't quite see this, but I take your point that the folks who smoke the rare clove or rose-flavored cigarette are probably not "real" smokers and this is mostly just an empty bullshit gesture.
50: what weird-ass customer are they aiming for?
The "aging jock who likes to think he's still cool enough to get with sexy young baristas" market.
Another possibility would be dads aware of these styles from having looked in on what their kids watch, and inclined to appreciate its appropriation for that purpose to be cute and knowing.
I can't believe that's actually Antonio Banderas. Perhaps he correctly anticipated that Americans would read the voice as "anonymous Spanish man" rather than Antonio Banderas. (I pre-emptively accept the racist charge if I was the only one who did this.)
I smoke and won't quit if it saves my life, and I say bidis are tasty. Not that I'd buy them or would be able to distinguish them from incense if I did, but there is an aesthetic value in inhaling something other than air, tobacco, or weed, and the Indonesians are on to something.
68: Right, I've seen that. The one I saw was not with a bee, but with human CGI things, a guy going to bed peacefully unclogged. No matter. Just weird. I'm not sure if it's supposed to mean: generic person! or modern, up-to-date! But it doesn't do to overthink these things.
Another possibility would be dads aware of these styles from having looked in on what their kids watch, and inclined to appreciate its appropriation for that purpose to be cute and knowing. the purpose of displacing their disturbing incest/pedophilia fantasies.
What about flavored tobacco at hookah bars?
(It's truly the perfect gateway tobacco product. Smooth as hell, flavored goofily, with the added heheheh-it's-a-hookah appeal.)
Nobody outside of affected weirdos smokes cloves as a habit
apart from Indonesians, of whom there are one or two.
Indonesians are affected weirdos, D2.
The Nasonex bee.
I read that as 'The Nanosex bee', and thought, holy crap, no matter how I try to keep up, modern life is leaving me in the dust.
73: Their popularity has really surged since the smoking ban too.
The bee needs to work on its web presence.
77: Yes! Hookah bars, still legal! As well as any bar deriving more than 10% of its income from tobacco products prior to the ban. Circa Tabac or whatever it's called was the most popular joint in the city for while. (Also, the lengthy cigarette menu was some affected fun.)
I recently heard about a VCU study that Hookah smoking is really popular with students.
Nobody outside of affected weirdos smokes cloves as a habit
Go team affected weirdo!
I'm kind of a tobacco snob, and, as appealing as the concept of the hookah bar may be to me, they tend to use weak tobacco and extraordinary amounts of silly flavors to appeal to la gente. If there is a real tobacco hookah bar in these states of ours, do let me know. You'd think there'd be something down apo's way.
I knew a guy who smoked cloves because he thought it was a loophole -- it's sinful to smoke tobacco, but cloves aren't mentioned (in whatever moral standard he was going by). God, I hated that guy.
Here's the video for one of the bee commercials. It occurs to me that if a bee really did have pollen allergies, it would be in serious trouble.
I knew a guy who smoked cloves because he thought it was a loophole -- it's sinful to smoke tobacco, but cloves aren't mentioned (in whatever moral standard he was going by).
What a fool. Did he think the cigarettes were filled with pure ground cloves?
85 is making sense. Smoke a cigarette after traditional intercourse, and a clove after anal.
This ruling makes me want to start smoking clove cigarettes.
63: You don't think some fraction of habitual clove smokers -- those who started smoking them as affectation but became nicotine addicts -- will switch to conventional American brands if their preferred smoke is banned?
God, I'm imagining the smell of a burning clove cigarette right now. Sooooo good.
So cloves are like anal sex, then.
94 continued: They both produce a burning sensation.
Smoke a cigarette after traditional intercourse, and a clove after anal.
And after oral, a chaw of Redman.
I smoked menthols for a very short time when I was a teenager, but only because they make a good counterpoint to King Edwards Slim Panatella cigars, which I had a thing for for about two months. I don't think you can get clove cigarettes here, or at least I'd never heard of them before.
They're both "sometime treats."
They both go well with pork fat?
Are there really people who smoke just cloves? I was a regular tabacky smoker first and smoked the cloves (as per 97... ) only as a "sometimes treat." Everyone I knew who ever smoked one was of the same philosophy. I don't see banning them as having any effect whatsoever other than to sadden those of us who are cheered by the occasional waft of spicy clove smoke and to hearten those who lump that in with smelly cigars.
97 makes me respect cookie monster again.
Did I mention that I admire Ms. B's former excellent taste in cigarettes? I do. I'm not sure where I should have stuck the "former", but I hope she gets the point.
Are there really people who smoke just cloves?
I don't know where I saw this but I have heard that Indonesian people smoke substantial amounts of clove cigarettes.
96: Redman is produced by a Swedish-owned company, whereas Copenhagen has nothing to do with Denmark. irony!
Are there really people who smoke just cloves?
Me! I have a couple of friends who do the same. (That said, none of us smokes more than a couple a day.)
104: me too. I used to pretty regularly smoke, oh, a pack every two months, until that got boring or I got more pot.
I really can't stand regular cigarettes, but have always found cloves kind of tasty. Seeing as I am in exactly zero danger of becoming addicted to smoking, this law is apparently specifically designed to annoy me.
rfts becomes more herself with each day.
I had the impression that just about all people who smoke cloves smoke just cloves. I knew a couple who did treat it as a "treat", though.
rfts becomes more herself with each day.
Indeed.
I guess me too, in the sense that I've never bought a pack of regular cigarettes for personal consumption and I have bought a couple of packs of cloves for personal consumption.
This ruling makes me want to start smoking clove cigarettes.
Once in high school I was hanging out with the smokers during a break in our Russian class. Someone lit a clove and a few other people got excited: "Ooo, I love cloves; can I have a drag?" So it was passed around the circle of students sitting on the lawn. When it came around to me, I was shocked and excited that everyone apparently thought it was perfectly fine to offer me, the abstemious Mormon kid, a cigarette. How my classmates imagined me ("he might want a drag from a clove") was so novel and exciting that I almost took a puff, which could have thrown my whole Mormonism into question (for myself, not for anyone else). But I didn't take it, so everything stayed the same.
29, 62: Fun stoner fact: if you use mouthwash, the alcohol dissolves a portion of the thc in the smoke bubbled through it, so you can use it in the traditional fashion and get high, if you bubble enough weed through it. Of course, that's less in the smoke, but, tradeoffs.
Huh. I may have to try that evil-sounding thing with the mouthwash after all. Here I thought Sifu was just pulling my leg.
Don't do it, man! What bbass isn't telling you is that the mouthwash -- while admittedly containing some THC -- has been used as bong water. Think about that for a second. Besides, it really does make the smoke taste gross.
I am serious about people doing it, though. Crazy LA fads.
has been used as bong water
Ah. Good point.
I was going to say. Is bbass really suggesting using bongwater as mouthwash? If so, here's another useful tip: used needles often contain traces of heroin! Waste not, want not!
here's another useful tip: used needles often contain traces of heroin! Waste not, want not!
That brings back long supressed memories of running out of weed and pathetically trying to get high from smoking the icky resin recovered from from an oft-used bowl. Not recommended.
116: dude! Totally recommended! You can get super baked off resin! Hint: hold your breath as long as possible after taking a hit.
used needles often contain traces of heroin!
And, for that matter, sewage contains measurable quantities of cocaine.
The scrape's the last hit of the bag, KR. Tastes bad, but it totally works.
You can get super baked off resin!
You can also get a headache that can't be treated with any known medication.
111 isn't a problem if you drink the bong water.
Knecht Reprucht, you're not going to fool me into trying to get high by drinking hundreds of gallons of raw sewage.
once bitten, twice shy.
sewage contains measurable quantities of cocaine
Sure, but jenkem's a lot less work.
We used to save our roaches -- and the heavily resinated weed within -- to roll second generation joints that were resinated all the way through. Once we accumulated enough of those to roll a third generation joint, that was probably 50 or 60% resin. Ahh, foul tasting heaven.
120: best medication for that headache is green and comes in plastic bags...
It's almost like you guys are trying to convince the kids to stay off drugs. "This is how pathetic you get if you smoke pot..."
"This is how pathetic resourceful you get if you smoke pot..."
124: Cannabis helps people organize their lives in strangely efficient ways.
I had a friend who made a pipe out of two swedish fish stuck together. Pathetic or resourceful: you decide.
Scraping bowls for resin isn't pathetic, its efficient.
I'm like an American Indian with a buffalo, B.
best medication for that headache is green and comes in plastic bags...
...which, were it abundantly available, would obviate the need to scrape resin.
You know what's even more efficient? Boil the bowl, then take the liquid (which will be all full of resin) and strain it through a coffee grinder. Let the result dry, and ta-da! Some shit you can smoke!
Lesson: smoking pot only gets pathetic if you're poor.
I'm like an American Indian with a buffalo, B.
And now I sit on my horse atop the crest of the hill, and look at the mountains of resin just recklessly discarded by KR and his ilk, and a single, silent tear runs down my sun-weathered cheek.
129: I can make a pretty good pipe out of a beer can. Or a toilet paper tube. Or an apple.
137: sure, sure, sure. So can I. But two swedish fish: think of the mechanics! Think of the engineering!
I'm suddenly remember why I'd start edging away when my stoner friends in middle school, who were otherwise quite entertaining, started talking about getting high.
138: I'm actually far too sober to begin to comprehend...
124: This really is a great thing to do. Or so I hear.
138: Wouldn't it, you know, ooze or melt? How does this work? I imagine you just end up eating the gloopy mess. (I hope they're red ones.)
and look at the mountains of resin just recklessly discarded by KR and his ilk, and a single, silent tear runs down my sun-weathered cheek.
C'mon, apo. That's not fair. I'm socially conscious. I donate my roaches and resin to Goodwill along with my used clothes in last year's style.
I donate my roaches and resin to Goodwill
That was you? Thanks, dude!
That was you? Thanks, dude!
No, the timing is wrong. In those days I was a net debitor w/r/t Goodwill clothing giveaways.
Besides, you still have both legs.
Which by the way continues to occasionally suck, especially on particularly beautiful days when one would love to be outside annoying non-smokers.
Word. Christ but all this thread does is make me want a clove. I smoked them every now and then as a treat. Banning cloves is like... I dunno. It's really sad. Mmm, cloves. I once had one of the three Greek brothers who ran the restaurant where I worked accuse me of smoking a joint when I was smoking a clove. Gods but they were assholes.
Cloves come up in one thread and all of a sudden, bam!, I'm in 1994. Just like that.
I was also, for one year of college, the white guy who smoked menthols so no one would bum from me.