Us vs. Them

20th January, 2009: Posted by glpease in Tobacco, Pipes, Enjoyment, Cigars

From what I’ve read on various pipe smokers’ fora, there is some crossover between cigarettes and pipes or cigars and pipes, however, “We,” as pipe smokers, seem to be more than a bit jingoistic about the way we choose to enjoy tobacco. Pipe smoking is seen as superior by many, both smokers and non-smokers alike. I suspect this has much to do with the historical image of the pipeman as thoughtful, educated, considerate. We’re not all Albert Einstein or Fred MacMurray, but there is a strong iconographic link, forged over decades, that still persists to some extent today, even despite the popular influence of the rabid anti-tobacco movement.

The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish: it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected.

—Wm. Makepeace Thackeray

Personally, though I thoroughly enjoy both pipes and cigars, I have never really been a cigarette smoker. Sure, I’ve had more than a few of the little things over the years in moments of weakness or curiosity, and some have been exquisite. I fondly recall the Balkan Sobranies in their little tin boxes, and the French Boyards, with their black tobacco and yellow corn-paper, sweet and powerful in flavour and in effect, not to mention the Old Holborn RYO tobacco that was splendid. I’m sorry to say these have gone the way of all flesh, even though I would only rarely indulge in their guilty pleasures.

Really, the only reason I’ve never adopted the custom of the cigarette is largely because I’ve simply never been one to embrace the notion of the quick and disposable smoke. I’ve always loved the pipe for its beauty, its steadfast companionship, and the attendant ritual that is a vital part of the pipe’s deeper pleasures. It provides so much more than just a smoke. The cigar, too, has its rites, and provides a good hour’s worth of enjoyment. Cigarettes simply are not my choice.

Still, I cannot help but find it a little disturbing that so many pipe smokers are vehement in their contempt towards cigarettes and those who smoke them. More disturbing, still, an informal poll of California pipe smokers during the early days of the Tobacco Wars here, showed a startling support for anti-smoking legislations, simply because they do not like cigarettes.

It’s interesting how smokers have become so factionalized. ‘Twasn’t that long ago when cigarette smokers, cigar smokers and pipe smokers coexisted in relative harmony. Today, things could scarcely be more different. I wonder how much of this vociferous dissent within the ranks of tobacco users results from the pressures of the antis on one side, and the pipe smoker’s desire, on the other,, to be held out as separate, lest we suffer a similar fate of vilification as has befallen the cursed and wretched cigarette smoker. Newsflash: We really ain’t so different anymore in the mind of the public-at-large, no matter how much we’d like to think we are. We smoke, ergo, in their minds, we’re killers.

But, the truth is that without “Them,” the cigarette companies, “We” would have a difficult time existing. The pipe tobacco industry today is indirectly, but very closely tied to the cigarette industry. If not for Big Tobacco, our selection of leaf would be minimal, at best, and the price of what we could get would be astronomical. We, as pipe smokers, enjoy a quite inexpensive luxury by virtue of the economy of scale that the cigarette industry creates.

Further, we have access to a wider variety of leaf due to the number of growers willing to work the land to produce the tonnage that Big Tobacco requires. The sum total of the pipe tobacco production in the world amounts to about what the cigarette industry sweeps off the floor after the lines are shut down. I’m not exaggerating; collectively, we consume in a year what they produce in a few hours.[1]

So, as much as many of us don’t care for cigarettes, they are really essential to our hobby,  and it’s a damned good thing that Big Tobacco hasn’t been shuttered by the relentless pressures from the antis, or we’d either be smoking pencil shavings and flavoured lawn clippings, or paying a inordinately high price for our pipeweed of choice.

With the dark, shadowy spectre of SCHIP looming ominously on the horizon, we need to be thinking about these things, and remembering the implications of any further tobacco legislation when we’re in the polling booths.

-glp

1. World tobacco production is presently ca. 6 million tonnes and increasing, expected to reach 7.1 million tonnes by 2010, as compared to ca. 4.5 million pounds in 2007, and shrinking, for pipe tobacco production.

10 Responses

  1. Eric (Oahu) Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 14:24

    All very good points and I hadn’t thought of many of them - especially not how the health of our hobby is intertwined with the cigarette industry. I’ve always been of the mind we should stick together, if for nothing else, that once they have come for them, we’ll likely be next. Thanks for posting this.

  2. Bob Says:
    May 6th, 2009 at 16:39

    Very good read and very good points Mr. Pease!

    I have just posted an article about the same subject. You can read it here: http://pipesmagazine.com/python/pipe-news/divided-we-fall-the-self-segregation-of-smokers/

    Thanks,
    Bob

  3. Zashkaser Says:
    August 5th, 2009 at 10:01

    You think everything sounds like existentialism.

  4. glpease Says:
    August 5th, 2009 at 10:19

    Though comments are moderated, I decided to let that last one through simply because it is so completely non-sequitur as to actually be kind of funny.

    -glp

  5. alfredo_buscatti Says:
    August 21st, 2009 at 9:38

    I too had never felt much kindred spirit for cigarette smokes; on the one hand the burnt tobacco stinks, on the other hand I associate all the deleterious effects of smoking with cigarettes, when in actuality pipe smoking has more than a few maladies associated with it.

  6. G.L. Pease Pipe Tobacco: Interview with Greg Pease of G.L. Pease Tobacco - Part 2 | With Pipe and Pen Says:
    April 16th, 2010 at 13:21

    […] I wrote more on this in the Chronicles in an article entitled, “Us vs. Them.” […]

  7. David Says:
    April 17th, 2010 at 8:44

    Mr. Pease, great article, but I’m left wondering how the pipe tobacco industry is tied to the cigarette industry. My understanding is that cigarette and pipe tobacco come from different fields and go through extremely different processes. Have I been misinformed?

  8. glpease Says:
    April 17th, 2010 at 9:14

    With the exception of specialty, condiment tobaccos, like Latakia and perique, pipe tobacco and cigarette tobacco are the same thing. They are grown, harvested, cured and aged identically. The bales of tobacco have no idea whether they’re destined for a paper tube or a pipe.

    The difference is what happens after that - how the leaf is blended, cut, processed and packaged. Cigarette blends, generally, won’t taste right in a pipe, and vice versa.

  9. Don Says:
    June 19th, 2010 at 14:54

    I suspect we’ve both enjoyed reading the history of tobacco and the ways in which one form of smoking falls out of fashion and another replaces it. Isn’t it likely that if cigarettes go, something “new” will come back in fashion?

  10. David Says:
    June 27th, 2010 at 8:29

    Thanks for the response, Greg! I just checked back here (after months, I know) and was pleasantly surprised to find it. I’m glad to know this bit of information. I’ve assumed that cigarette and pipe tobacco were grown so differently that cigarettes could go the way of the dodo and pipe tobacco would still be plentiful. Thanks for informing me! I’ll be sure to check back more often! :)

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