R.I.P Cloves

*Disclaimer: Yes, I know that smoking is bad. And growing up I always said I would NEVER smoke after watching my dad smoke for the past however many decades.  Thus I am not encouraging ANYBODY to start smoking cloves or any other type of tobacco product.  I'ma quit eventually..... I swear I will.

It's been 19 days since the law banning clove cigarettes went into effect.  For those of you not aware, Congress passed a law that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes...... except for menthol (I'll get to that later).  The law authorizes the FDA to ban all flavored tobacco products, but as of right now it just applies to cigarettes (no worries, your local hookah bar is safe).  The principle behind the law is that it is intended to discourage kids from smoking with the whole "gateway" theory that says that flavored tobacco appeals more to kids, and thus entices them to smoke. 

What a buttload of crap.

Clove smokers make up 1% of the smoking population.... ONE PERCENT.  You mean to tell me that all the teens that smoke are in that 1%?  I didn't know about cloves until I was about 28, but I sure saw PLENTY of teens smoking regular old cigarettes.  This law was a half-hearted swing at the tobacco industry that missed by a mile, and only served to piss us neo-hippie folks off. 

And did you know this? The bill was backed by Phillip-Morris.  That kind of explains why the ban excludes menthol cigarettes (even though they are flavored), because that's what Phillip-Morris sells.  Phillip Morris doesn't sell cloves.... those are primarily made and imported by Kretek International, an Indonesian company.  So basically the U.S. Government just gave Phillip Morris a $140 million per year gift by squashing a portion of their competition.  If Congress were REALLY concerned about the health of the American youth, they would have included menthols in the ban as well, because I seem to recall an awful lot of kids in high school smoking menthols.....

So for the clove smokers out there, we were left with a few options:

1. Stock up on Djarums and keep them in an Army bunker (but at $70 a carton, I don't know too many of my folks who did that...... maybe DJ Limelight, but I'm sure he can write that off as a business expense)
2. Switch to regular cigarettes (gwoss)
3. Stop smoking altogether (the most idealistic of the choices, but not very realistic)
4. Switch to the new and unimproved Djarum Black filtered cigars.
   

Option number 4 was the one I kept hearing from my clove smoking brethren, saying that Djarum Blacks weren't really going away, just being repackaged and there wouldn't be any change.

What a second buttload of crap.

My assessment of the new and unimproved Djarum Blacks is that they suck lemur nuts.  I bought one pack and that was enough for me.  They come in a smaller package and are cheaper that the old cloves, and they are slightly bigger in diameter.  The change that makes them legal to sell is that they are wrapped in tobacco instead of paper, and thus considered a cigar.  Well, they taste like a cigar and NOT like a Djarum Black.  Smoking one made me feel like someone kicked me in the chest, and then forced me to lick their ashtray clean.  I've yet to find anyone who actually likes them.  I went to my favorite little smoke shop in the white hood that has the drive thru window, and they said they weren't even going to carry them because nobody likes them.  Damn. 

So basically all Congress did was 1) piss off the people who probably all voted for Obama in the first place  2) left us with a MORE harmful alternative that contains more tobacco than their predecessors and 3) did Big Tobacco a huge favor.  Thanks for looking out for my best interests, Government.

Right now I'm left with a few Djarum Cherrys/Reds that I managed to find from a retailer that was trying to get rid of their stock.   They're not Djarum Blacks, but they're not those shitty Djarum Black cigars either.  Presently I'm looking into a 5th option and researching the legality of purchasing them online directly from the importer. Goodness knows I have no desire to break any federal laws over some dumb ish that I really shouldn't be doing anyway. But supposedly the law only bans the sale of cloves by US distributors, not their purchase or possession.  I don't trust everything I read on the internet, though, so we shall see.