If you're old enough to remember cigarette commercials on TV ("Richly rewarding, yet uncommonly

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

36. Good for you

Great to know that you haven't paid a price for your enjoyment of smoking all these years. I smoked cigarettes when I was 15 and spent a year going to school in France. I remember that the teachers would smoke in class during lectures but that was back in the 60s. The cigarettes tended to be strong and cured much differently than in the U.S. and were made of dark tobacco (Gitanes, Celtiques, Boyards, Gauloises).

I'm curious as to how you chose a brand to smoke when you started. My dad smoked unfiltered Camels I think because they were supposed to be the strongest and with the highest nicotine content and were marketed as the most macho smoke. Some brands like Camels and Marlboro were marketed to rugged manly men. Some like Virginia Slims were marketed to women. Parliament, Pall Mall, and Viceroy were marketed to sophisticates. Some like Old Gold and Chesterfields were supposed to appeal to an older crowd while ads for True and Merit went after young adults. But weren't almost all brands available in the U.S. back then made from the same blonde Virginia tobacco and cured about the same way? Except for light or menthol versions of regular cigarettes, was there a difference between Winston, Marlboro, Raleigh, Viceroy, Kent, Pall Mall, Virginia Slims, Tareyton, Old Gold, Chesterfield, Parliament, Merit, Saratoga, Philip Morris, Picayune, True, Vantage, or the myriad other brands I can't remember? I remember working in a 7-11 in the 70s and if we ran out of Marlboro, some customers went apoplectic and refused to consider any other brand. I suspect the same tobaccos were being used from cigarette brand to cigarette brand but the mystique over certain names is what appealed to people. Maybe I'm wrong and there is an enormous difference between, say a Marlboro and a Parliament but I have my doubts.