These are dark times for the tobacco industry. For years the problem of second hand smoke and cigarette sharing between friends has been a growing concern and in these days of ever more expensive production costs, the fact that some smokers out there are inhaling the rich fumes of delicious tobacco without contributing anything to the mega-corps that produce them is something that desperately needs to be dealt with.
In fact, recent undisclosed but almost certainly true research has shown that second hand smoke and cigarette sharing is EQUALLY as bad as tobacco piracy, in which one person will steal a tobacco plant and use its seeds to grow a limitless number of others.
Now, some naysayers claim that this is not the case, that the act of sharing cigarettes will actually instigate nicotine addiction in a whole host of potential new customers who will go on to legally purchase their own packs. They might even go so far as to say that being able to count on someone to give you a cigarette if you’re caught short actually HELPS them continue the strength of their habit so that they will be able to purchase new packs in greater quantities.
But these short-sighted people haven’t factored in the hobos who smoke butts off the floor, or the social smokers who will only have one or two off a friend when they’re out on a Friday. These people will never contribute to the hard working tobacco industry, and whilst those cigarettes have technically already been purchased, the owners shouldn’t be allowed to pass them on to whoever they please just because they parted with money for them.
Therefore, in an effort to do my part to aid in the production of many more cigarettes in the future, I’ve made a list of a few things we can do to help the vulnerable tobacco industry.
- Swabbing: all packs of cigarettes should come with a special swab, and before the purchaser can have even a single drag they must swab the inside of their mouth and send it off to the tobacco industry along with the unique code that will now be included on every pack. From then on, after smoking a cigarette, the tobacco industry can examine the DNA on the butts to make sure it matches only the purchaser’s. (In a slightly more extreme version of this, smokers must send a swab from the butt of the cigarette between every drag- although this has proved unpopular).
- In an effort to make up the lost profits on cigarette sharing (of which there is a great and easily calculable number), the tobacco companies should raise the price of cigarettes.
- People who are offered a cigarette by a friend should only be able to take a single drag (of course, the tobacco companies aren’t Nazis!). If they wish to smoke any more though, they will need to purchase their own code and swab separately from a newsagent.
- Packs of ten cigarettes should be reduced to packs of eight, with the final two being attainable only if you send off a swab and a code.
- In addition to the above, extra cigarettes should be made available over time at a discounted price for those who purchased new packets, but only if they can prove that nobody but the original purchaser smoked them.
- A few years ago the tobacco industry attempted to increase the attraction of purchasing cigarettes new by offering special bonuses (cosmetic ones naturally, like the colour of the filter) to those that purchased new. But whilst that did appeal to some customers, they decided that it would be better to simply deprive cigarettes from those customers that failed to purchase packs quickly enough.
As you can see, with a few simple changes we can wipe out the cancer that is second-hand smokers whilst barely impacting the experience of new purchasers. Obviously these changes will be expensive to implement and may detract from the time spent on making sure the quality of the cigarettes is maintained but it’s nothing compared to how much extra money will be gained from wiping out the non-contributing members of the hobby. And who cares if sometimes the swabs and codes don’t work and you’re not able to smoke the pack you’ve legally bought from a shop? Remember, it’s the tobacco industry that we’re helping here, not you.
This post was inspired by a twitter conversation between myself and @nolan_mcbride
