I think I'm smoking counterfeit cigarettes
 

I keep reading online about counterfeit cigarettes made in crime rings that are being sold through the internet, and how they have very high levels of cadmium, arsenic, other toxins and heavy metals. (More than regular cigarettes, which alone can kill you.)

I got a little concerned, because I buy cigarettes online for just over $11 a carton, plus shipping. (A carton in the store is about $50)

The cigarettes are made in the Ukraine and are in a different pack than in the U.S. (Most european cigs are different than U.S, even major brands).

Still, I start wondering if they're counterfeit and they're gonna kill me in half the time. So, I emailed the website I buy them from.

Emails:
ME:
I keep reading things online about dangerous counterfeit cigarettes that contain more toxins.
Do you know where your cigarettes are produced, and by what company?

If I am concerned about smoking counterfeit cigarettes, would you suggest that I buy them in a store in the US instead of ordering them online?
(Or are yours safe?)

REPLY:
Dear Sir,
Our cigarettes are slightly different from US cigarettes.
They come from Eastern Europe.

If you have some additional questions, feel free to contact us.
Have a great day!

ME:
thanks for telling me where they come from, but do you know what company manufactures them?

REPLY:
Dear Customer,

We don't deal with Phillip Morris.

If you have some additional questions, feel free to contact us.
Have a great day!

stacy. ........stacy, stacy,stacy.

....sigh

They'll kill you either way ... Maybe you'll lose an extra week from the cheap, formerly Soviet, smokes. Although, if they get you quickly ... maybe there's a Law & Order episode that would be based on your death ... I mean you already think the cigs are going to kill you, and if Arsen (or someone else, but the Russian Emigre with possible mob ties is a frequent villain on L&O) added to the toxic chemicals ...

I hear RI just went non-smoking. No smoking indoors at all. Is that causing a problem for you yet?

(My sister lives in Cumberland, works in Providence. If I ever get up to visit her, we usually travel to Newport to look at boats and mansions. If I do that, I'll let you know!)

No smoking indoors? In your own home?

Now just a goddamned minute...what country am I living in, again?

RI, due to proximity to MA, is essentially a communist satellite state.

I haven't gone out as much since they banned smoking in bars. It sucks to stand on the street and let everyone riding by know that you're such an addicted dirty smoker that you'll stand out in the rain/snow/cold/wind to have a cigarette.

I've been drinking at home and smoking all I want- or we'll go to Arsen's russian friends' place and drink and smoke.

I hardly ever go out to eat anyways, because it's so damned expensive. And the one time we did go out to eat this year, we had to go stand outside to smoke in between aps and entrees and that SUCKED.

I think it's a good thing, though. They probably should've done it a long time ago. I smoke, but I know it's disgusting and unhealthy, so why should everyone else be subjected to it? I'm ashamed to smoke in public. Even while I'm driving, I hate it if someone looks at me while I'm taking a drag. I feel like a crackhead with my dirty addiction.

I plan on switching to the lightest cigs on the market in August (end of summer so I don't care if I gain weight), smoke those air sticks for a few months, and then go on the lowest dose patch. I made this plan in January. It's my one year, take it easy plan to quit smoking.

But I have a closet stuffed with 16 cartons of cigs that I think are counterfeit, and I'll probably smoke the damn things, too. They can't give me cancer and kidney disease in just a little year- can they? :worried:

They're made in Ukraine? I'd be concerned they were grown in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Then again, a little extra strontium probably won't kill much faster.

There's no doubt something dodgy going on, as for the extra posions, I'm sure it comes from the same people that claim that coke gets chopped with posion and amusingly, anthrax as well. I can see it now:
Dealer 1: We need to debase this coke a bit to make more money
Dealer 2: True, pass the flour!
Dealer 1: No! Lets obtain dangerous posions and bioagents and use those instead, at more cost, more risk and with greater danger of being hunted down when someone dies!
Dealer 2: Brilliant! I'll contact Al Queda.

I wish that were true!- that it was just the legitimate cigarette companies or government trying to scare everybody out of buying them- but their story is very, very believable:
(here's just one of the many pages I found on this...)
Basically, they blame the toxins/ metals on fertilizers, pesticides and acidic soil.

Well seems like another case of you get what you pay for.

<Monty Python shopkeeper>
So miss what'll it be? You want the plain cigarettes with just the nicotene and coal tar or are you wanting the extra fancy with the strontium-90 and the extra toxins?

Jag - on the coke part, that isn't all myth. not in the states anyway. it isn't some big conspiracy or anything, but sheer laziness and stupidity. i am personally aware of coke being laced with bleach, among other things.

if you know someone who does a fair amount of coke and then, suddenly their skin breaks out with what looks to be a horrible case of acne... but instead of little whiteheads, etc. the "pimples" will ooze clear fluid or a pussy material - your friend just nailed with some cheap cutting.

seriously - it isn't that infrequent. it usually happens close to the street. it may have been fairly pure to begin with, but after a pinch here and a bump there, your friendly neighborhood supplier ends up with bleach, talc, meth, etc... missed in to bring it back up to weight for very low cost.

as always, Drugs 're baad, m'kay?

You say that like it's a bad thing.

depends on which side of the line you are sitting on i suppose.

coke doesn't do anything to me other than make me babble for about 5 minutes and then I get sleepy... damn backwards metabolism! but stacy, if you're planning on really quiting (I'm going to give it a shot here once the students get out of town.. makes it less stressfull.. although the boredom angle gets much worse) ANYWAY! if you're looking for a cigarette that has the least alterations to it? i'd recomend american spirits (although they did get bought out by one of the majors) loose tobacco, 1.) they're cheap 2.) there are no additives and 3.) rolling your own is a pain in the ass (to me anyway). and I have had some friends that have had good luck with that smoke away stuff.. (I have a bottle of the liquid form.. well... same ingredients just absorbed faster) anyway! you could always sell those cigarettes to highschool kids! :)

You can get some samples of American Spirits: http://www.nascigs.com/Pages/Home.htm

I didn't get mine, because I didn't forward my address from Boulder.

I like their menthols, but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

Thanks for the recommendations...NOT the high school kid one, though!
I was thinking of selling them to the people I work with- Take THAT for calling me too skinny:)

I switched to Winston a few years ago because they claim they don't have additives.
I am on their "superlights" right now, which supposedly have .4 mg nicotine per cig.

I want to switch to Winston Ones in August, which have .1 mg nicotine per cig.

Do you know of any cheaper cigs that only have .1 mg of nicotine or is Winston the only brand?

And don't give me that shit about light cigs not being light, blah blah blah. I'll get used to them and stop taking triple drags and I WILL get less nicotine, because there are a bunch of holes in the filter- so they WILL help me to gradually reduce my addiction!

OH MY GOD, I thought I invented this neat little plan on reducing the amount of nicotine in my cigarettes. I dreamed it up in January all by myself- and then two seconds ago, I found this website
I have renewed hope that it'll work :)

I bought a book in around 1984/5 or so entitled "How to Keep Smoking and Live".

Their plan was:

1. Buy lights (which had pretty much just come on the market, including the thoroughly tasteless Barclays and Merits)
2. Smoke fewer of them.

Whenever I get into quitting mode I do a step down progression ... Heavies, Mediums, Lights, Ultralights ...

I also buy Natural American Spirits when I feel like spending $5.00 or more a pack ... otherwise I get whatever's on special. Camel has been doing a lot of buy one get one free packaging late. Marlboro is usually buy two get one, although they did have Special Blend No. 27s at the Wawa last week on b1/g1. RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris smokes are often sold at PA State Minimum as well ... $3.50ish?

One of the 7-11s has Natural American Spirits, but it's not a common item to find. The buyer for the store must be some kind of a hippie. Usually they can only be found in specialty tobacco stores, of which there are two in my immediate vicinity.

I never buy cartons. Despite the fact that I would save money, it makes having cigarettes so much more convenient. I don't need them to be convenient.

There's always Nat Sherman cigarettes.

The only thing I've tried out of their line is "A Touch of Clove" and they are horrid.

Gimme Djarums and bleeding lungs any day ...

Besides ... $7.60 a pack plus shipping? Yeah. Sure.

The Nat Sherman Mints are pretty good...but a little bland if you are use to menthols like me.

I don't smoke so I can be as extravagant as I want to be.

come on guys, aren't you all going to go onto that website, learn the easiest, withdrawal-free way to quit smoking on earth and credit me with saving your lives and your money???
I'm really convinced that this'll work for me. I already emailed my mom and told her about it, too. Next, you will see a print out of that web page on the bulletin board at my job and a copy in my boss's inbox...

It's so simple, yet so amazing to me... I don't know why I didn't just do this years and years ago. Why did I ever try the stupid patch or the gum? They work on the same principle, but leave you deprived and going through withdrawal every step.

.3 mg down at a time, that's the way to go- and now that I think about it, it really wasn't hard for me to switch from lights to superlights- and I consider myself extremely, highly addicted. (1 pack a day for 14 years).

Something good came out of my counterfeit cigarette research:) In the process, my desire to quit became stronger, and my faith in myself to actually be able to do it blossomed.

somebody please smack all of this positivity out of me- It just doesn't feel right.

:lol: And that is what is so freakin' great about staceyv!

I gave up smoking about 3 years ago and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.did it with nicorette gum..
Chomped on it for a month,then normal chewing gum.
You have really got to be determined to do it..Now cig smoke makes me want to heave.Also miss having a spliff don't want to in case i get back into smoking **sigh**

I guess that I forget that Indian smokeshops aren't located all over the place like they are here in Oklahoma. $3.50ish a pack is cheap??? When I spent two weeks in Alaska, I wished I'd done more research or asking around before I went. Cigarettes there were $5.00 a pack most everywhere, if I'd known that, I would have taken enough with me to last the two weeks.

Firstly it's Ukraine not "the" Ukraine. Pedantic I know.

On the Monty Python front if the tobaco is grown in the Chernoble region does that mean you get cancer and radiation therapy in the same cigarette?

It they kill you in half the time does that mean you have a half-life?

You need to move here to Indonesia a carton is $7.

A buddy told me in Indonesia the kids pick up butts from where ever for recycling and then they add the "A Touch of Clove"

Most "local" Indonesian cigarettes have cloves. Ex-President's son Tommy Suharto used to have the clove monopoly!!

At 7000 Rupiah a packet kids don't have to do that anymore, although you can buy 3 cigarettes from small shops. Kids start young here. It's a sign of manhood (sic) you know circumcision at 12, cigarettes at 13. My Thai partner notices how many people in Indonesia smoke compared to Thailand. She says everyone! Also she notices there are no phone boxes on the street and the gas stations only have one or two pumps.

Congrats be-bop. I'm sure your lungs are thanking you.

*swoons*

That gives the poor boy 623 FEWER weeks to overcome the trauma. Why wait, if you're gonna do it anyway? *shivers*

A neighbor's husband was converting to Judaism for her, and part of the process was he was supposed to go through the bris ceremony performed on babies, part of which is the circumcision. He was already circumcised, but he still had to let the mohel (sp?) nick him with a razor. I was completely shocked that he would do something like that for her--and that wasn't even a full circumcision...

screw that! then again I was born in a jewish hospital (trust me in Kc you want to go to one..) so what's done is done.. and even if it hadn't been I more than likely would have had it done at some point.. the idea of schmegma (sp?) is *shivers* icky. (heh I have enough trouble keeping my fingernails clean :) )

schmegma- what is it?
Nevermind, I looked it up. Smegma is supposedly a great thing-

""Smegma is probably the most misunderstood, most unjustifiably maligned substance in nature. Smegma is clean, not dirty, and is beneficial and necessary. It moisturizes the glans and keeps it smooth, soft, and supple. Its antibacterial and antiviral properties keep the penis clean and healthy. All mammals produce smegma. Thomas J. Ritter, MD [co-author of Say No to Circumcision] underscored its importance when he commented, 'The animal kingdom would probably cease to exist without smegma.'" ("Where Is My Foreskin? The Case Against Circumcision," by Paul M. Fleiss, MD, Mothering, Winter 1997) "

And if you'd like to learn more about smegma and see some photos, (NOT for work), here you go :): http://www.foreskin.org/smegma.htm

uh, you could cough it up, pick it out of your nose, ears, or eyes... really it is just a descriptor for gross stuff.

at least in my word usage.

If I'm coughing up smegma, picking it out of my ears and nose and eyes, DAMN, I must've been kinky last night!!

well, thanks for the information, but i'll stick with my former word usage. any creamy oily substance that is on my penis without sexual activity is pretty gross, if you ask me.

but what do i know, mr happy doesn't wear a turtleneck. :headshake

I almost hurled when I read the last few posts in this thread. I thought we were talking about cigarettes. :vomit:

I guess that could be my crazy american influence talking, but man, those pictures nearly did me in.

well, a cigarette is always great afterwards...

Um, and just for the record, my husband isn't circumsized and I have NEVER seen smegma until I saw those pictures! The foreskin does kind of hold in sweat and leftover urine, though, so I won't go near the damn thing unless he just got out of the shower...

Smegging Hell!! Any Red Dwarf fans out there?

it isn't the uncircumsized penis that bothers me...that's not an issue....its that smegma stuff...blech.

http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/thumb.gif

"Smeg" is probably the best sci-fi cuss ever invented.

Stacey, this has been a really, um, entertaining and educational thread. But. Look, just don't f*ckin smoke, problem solved.

Now in anticipation of the glorious HELL to be rained down upon me for deliberately oversimplifying the scenario, I "preemptively" respond: whatever.

Dress it up any which way you like, at the end you're either still smokin and takin all the attendant health risks, or you're NOT smoking and you avoid the risks. Whatever.

:stickingtongueout:

Nat Shermans are the best cigarettes out there, IMO. They're $5 a pack, but they are SO worth it. They have nothing in them except tobacco, so if you don't keep puffing, they go out. When you relight them, they don't taste stale at all, and if you get the Fantasias, it's like smoking dessert cigarettes....yummy.


Sidhe

like I said american spirits... on a side note though... sorry about ever bringing up the schmegma thing!... you can get a 6$ carton from american spirit.. 'a sample assortment' as such, if you like I can get you the URL.. or type in american spirits/ santa fe tobbacco into your search engine...

and quitting smoking sucks.. it was one of the most painfull things I've done in a long time (other than quitting the drugs :) ) and I'm staring down the barrell of doing that again this summer... this time for real.. maybe I'll do that magical 'filling out' thing finally!

lean like a jaguar! *hand raking motion*

I smoke the American Spirits in the blue box. Well I take em out of the box. But the box they come from is blue. Takes more work to smoke one...I bummed a Marlboro Light from a friend, and on my first drag I killed a quarter of it.

I actually didn't smoke at all yesterday, and only missed it for about five minutes, I was so busy. I've gotten to the point where I only smoke about half of one. May quit for good soon...I didn't seem to notice any physical withdrawal symptoms at all yesterday. It might be easier than I think now that I'm down to half a cigarette 4 times a day.

cool. I need to do that soon.. and spend less time here :) there was a time when 4 cigarettes a day did the trick... then again I cared more then.. i suppose it's a psychological thing.. tangent much? anyway, good luck if you want to quit! more power to you! YO! okay.. really I need to sleep

noodle, switch to the yellow box next ... then if you can find them, yellow and whites.

I just checked their webpage and there are a lot more varieties than I knew about ... I'm going to have to check the local high end tobacconist for them, rather than relying on the 7-11.

the ultra-lights bleargh! if you're going to smoke those just quit :)

mmm the blacks and crimsons.. yowch! smoky yummy death!

actually if you can deal with it roll your own american spirits are the way to go. 4.20 for basically 2 packs worth of tobacco... just an opinion

they have the black ones at the smoke shop across the street. Perique tobacco, supposedly. Yah I like those. They smell like you're smoking a pipe. And the blues seem like lights afterwards.

But screw all of it. I don't need that expense. Just as soon as I can compose myself for a run at cold-turkey, I'm going to. It'll mean quitting a couple other bad habits as well, since they really trigger the craving. But when I'm 70, my body will thank me all around.

***TMI alert***

It's funny, when I was 20 I couldn't imagine still wanting to live at 70. You know what actually changed my mind about it? I heard my parents having sex the other morning. In the old days I would've run screaming from the state and gone into seclusion on a mountain somewhere after sawing my ears off with a spork. But this time there was something kinda life-affirming about it. Maybe old people still have fun. At any rate, it actually made me smile a little bit on my way out to work, and I realized that I probably would still want life at age X as much as I do now.

So maybe I'll quit. I hope I remember to try this summer.

I have every episode of Red Dwarf...

And when I do smoke, I smoke "sweet dreams" vanilla or cherry (about $5.00 a pack, not available in a carton). I've had total strangers come up and ask what I'm smoking because it smells so freaking good. And these are not cigarillos or whatever. Really cigarettes.

t's funny, when I was 20 I couldn't imagine still wanting to live at 70. You know what actually changed my mind about it?

and yeah.. life affirming .. makes me want to live alittle longer.. the downside being I have no one to shack up with... my highschool g/f is long gone.. my 4 ex fiances.. gone.. and I'm getting olde :) so... what me and my guitars? sure (oh damn mrnoodle I have to send you a song) but uh... we're not bearing offspring! then again that's probabaly best.. let the dumb folks breed.. as they will inherent the earth.. not to piss off any cellerites who have bred (I'm just jealous and too picky.. and no! I didn't mean that like that!)

oh... yeah I'm actaully going to take a run at quit smoking this summer.. which sucks.. as I'm smoking right now... anyway! be strong! we can bitch at eachother! gimmie a date and I'll aim towards it..

I've quit a few times and tried numerous other methods for trying to "trick" myself into quitting or smoking less. None of them work. I figure with the life expectancy rate in my family, I probably won't live much past 60, anyway.

I don't like smoking anything but menthols. It's nice, because people always think twice before bumming one off me. Of course, there are those people who get drunk and smoke half my pack, but hey, man, I guess it's alright. I tried smoking bedes in the past (they are those cigarettes that are wrapped in leaves and I have no clue what's in them). I didn't like them too much. Cloves are nice, but give me an oily throat feeling afterwards. Regular cigarettes taste nasty in comparison to menthols, so I avoid those, too. Now, if I could only quit smoking those! I use to roll my own with this tobacco I got from Smoker Friendly. It saved quite a bit of money, since it is cheaper and I wasn't as motivated to smoke all the time if I had to roll a cigarette. I haven't seen a Smoker Friendly in Kansas, though. I wonder if there is a similar operation somewhere around here.

Cloves are supposed to have like double the cancer in them.

just in case you missed this part of the thread:THIS is the easiest way to quit smoking, without withdrawal.
I've already gone down from .7 mg nicotine per cigarette to .4 mg. And I could hardly tell the difference! Now the .4's taste strong to me!
I't really easy to do little steps like this.

And if you can go from .7 mg nicotine per cig to .4, then it's just as easy to go down to .1 mg.

And if you give yourself time to adjust to the .1's, you'll hardly miss that amount of nicotine when you quit. Try it guys!

I've been smoking for 14 years, a pack a day, and I think this method is what will save me!