The Substitute 3#305 / 2009-04-11
As a beginning smoker I experimented with various brands. All brands really. Filtered, non, menthol, regular, organic, mutant... I even smoked Marlboro Lights imported from Sweden for a while*.
It didn't take too long for me to settle on American Spirit. I used to be able to order them direct from Indian** reservations duty free, which made it affordable to smoke their organic line (cartons were only about $20 after shipping). But in keeping with tradition, the US government eventually got around to pressuring the credit card companies into revoking merchant accounts for reservations. Thus I was forced to buy cigarettes at tobacconists like everyone else, and forced to pay for the privilege like everyone else.
Ug.
After moving to California I started rolling my own (Natural American Spirit Premium Roll-Your-Own 100% Additive-Free Natural Tobacco). It didn't take long for me to become an expert roller. I am a genius after all. And hand-rolled cigarettes are pretty sexy. Tiffany thinks so anyway.
* Swedish Marlboro Lights have brown filters! Oooohh! The strength is also somewhere between domestic Lights and Reds.
** I've never been comfortable using the term Native American. It's all so relative. Marsupials were native before any primates rafted over, and reptiles before them, and fish before them, etc.
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