RIP Marlboro Lights

Not really.

They are turning into Marlboro Gold to comply with new FDA regulations banning words like "light" and "mild":

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/business/19smoke.html?ref=business

Apparently some want to ban color-coding, as well, as the next step. Push this too far, and the FDA is going to get an introduction to Big Tobacco's friend the United States Constitution.

 

At which point Marlboro's suppliers will be introduced to "slashed Federal farm subsidies."

D'oh!

 

I think there was a comedian who asked what was better about a "light" cigarette; did they give you a less-fatal form of lung disease or did the resulting disease just kill you slower?

 

Might as well just ride off into the sunset.

 

Lotsa folks still call Marlboro reds "Cowboy killers."

 

If they smoke they poke.

- Wisdom I was too dumb to figure out in high school.

 

Which is fine. But to outright start banning color-coding is just outrageous.

Obviously Lights and Ultra-Lights are aimed at 20-something social smokers. People don't smoke them because they're safer. They smoke them because they're easier to smoke than Reds. At some point, adults should be allowed to make decisions for themselves. And I say this as someone whose father has been in miserable health for years because of cigarettes.

 

I will say this, as a reformed smoker of 30 years:

Few things in life seemed as "cool" at the time as buying a hard box of Marlboro Reds for $.35, packing the hell out of them with two or three good slams against your palm, opening the pack, letting a few loose flecks of tobacco fly away when you pulled off the inside wrapper, and then lighting one up and watching the empty paper at the end of the cigarette burn off before you hit the tobacco.

Man, I absolutely loved Marlboro Reds. Loved them.

 

I love smoking a cigarette from time to time. I smoke maybe five cigarettes a year and love every one of them.

 

Yeah, well ...