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Saying Goodbye to Clove Cigarettes
Walking home from high school one day during freshman year, I ran into my sometimes friend Michel Finzi with his sidekick, a smart-ass kid named George who played in the school band. Finzi, a good-looking French kid who was always regaling me with stories of the girls and surfing at Cape Cod, a world totally foreign to me, was smoking something enticingly pungent. "What's that?" I asked.
"A Krak," Finzi said. "Wanna try?" He handed over a burning Krakatoa brand clove cigarette.
I took a drag of the sweet, heavy smoke, and after about five seconds was floating pleasantly. "Cool," I said. So Finzi, who was headed the other way, generously gave me my own to smoke. By the time I got home, I'd finished about half of it and was feeling pretty damn sick. Had to lie down a while.
Thus began my occasional affair with clove cigarettes. But never again did I smoke one alone. A complex etiquette developed among my close friends. A clove had to be shared with others. Spoken of in codes. Symbols on the package took on special meanings. One could not smoke it past a certain point. One could never ask for a lit clove, reach out for it, or even eye it furtively in the hands of another. It could only be offered. But woe befall those who would Bogart it—hold it longer than the others deemed appropriate. For that sin, you risked ignominy.
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Naturally, the clove cigarettes proved a gateway to other niche tobacco products such as the oh-so-pretentious Sobranie Black Russians, black with gold filter tip, sold in wide, flat boxes; or the diminutive bidis—little Indian jobs made from single rolled up leaves. Such exotic items were a way to seem, maybe even be, a little different for a while, something to set the punky drama kids apart from the jocks and Deadheads who sucked down their Camels and Marlboros. Somehow we felt more creative, pensive, literary, raising a thoughtful middle finger to the popular crowd and the repressive establishment that we would never join. So what if cloves and bidis were more dangerous than regular cigs. We were gonna live fast and die young anyway.
Of course, we were mostly full of shit, just like the high-school outsider kids I still see smoking their Djarums and experimenting with eyeliner. But it looks like my kids will have to find their own pretentious high school rebel props. As of today, the Food and Drug Administration has officially shut the door on clove cigarettes, along with all other flavored cigarettes (other than menthol), deeming them an effort to market tobacco to children. (Damn right they are.)
High school drama geeks, to the barricades!
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Sigh... As a 25-year old who
Sigh... As a 25-year old who hasn't smoked a clove in at least 6 years (and almost never smokes cigarettes anymore), I felt a bit wistful reading the news that the FDA had banned cloves along with other flavored cigarettes. Cloves, I felt, were more authentic than those berry and apple flavored cigarettes. Of course, the reason I'm nostalgic is because they were such a great statement when I was in high school, precisely the time when it's supposed to be illegal to smoke and when smoking carries its maximum rebellious, pseudo-intellectual weight. In the last few months I've thought several times about getting a pack of cloves, for old times' sake. Alas, now it's too late. Fare thee well, Kreteks.
Well, that'll keep me from
Well, that'll keep me from smoking ever again, if nothing else. Cloves were the only cigarette I ever bought. Yes, I was in drama, why do you ask? :P
"If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than..."
I used cloves back in high school, skipping class at the coffee shop and everything. So I stopped by the local cigar parlor today and caught a look at the new clove "cigars": same brands but they just upped the amount of tobacco in them so they qualify as "little cigars" under the OTP class instead of "cigarettes".
Still around. Now they've inadvertently made them stronger. Suck it, FDA.
clove cigars
Actually, the FDA is aware of the cigars and has warned manufacturers that if they see them trying to replace the cigs, the cigars will be banned, too. In fact, it seems like flavored cigars are next on the list: Goodbye Swisher Sweets!
Not that it matters
They've already found a way to get around this "ban", not that you can't just import them online anyway, most places won't care sending the stuff into the country. Just like a lot of "banned" medicals.
You can take away my clove cigarettes . . .
. . . when you can pry them from my cold dead lips.
Step one - buy rolling tobacco
Step two - buy cloves
Step three - buy rolling papers
Step four - grind and mix the cloves and tobacco together
Step five - roll your own.
Step six - laugh at the FDA and blow smoke in their faces.
What are they going to do? Make cloves illegal?
You can also add a little clove oil to the mix.
Clove cigarettes are bad for you, but HFCS, Nutrasweet and antidepressants are GOOD for you - that is the FDA.
P.O.d in Nor Cal
I am so incredibly sad and angry about this. When will the gov't stop telling grown adults what they can and can't do? They say it is because flavored cigs are a gateway to smoking for kids. Well kids aren't supposed to be smoking under 18. How about focusing on regulation instead of just taking our rights away? Pretty soon this country is going to be like North Korea! It's just happening slowly so that we don't revolt. Mark my words, before the Gen Xrs die out cigs, cigars and chew will be illegal.
If this is about the impact of smoking on health benefits costs, obesity is the real epidemic in this country, not lung cancer. Oh, I forgot...they subsidize the farmers who make corn for corn syrup, not tobacco farmers any more. Effing bastards.
swishers and the like
I am not gonna lie, I am already feeling really nostalgic for those Djarum blacks. Mm, headache or slight nausea or not I bought a few packs. For some reason they never managed to hook me, but I thought they were sooo cool when I was sixteen.
Also: If they get rid of black & milds it is going to throw a serious cramp in my styyyyle
Cloves and the American Tobacco Lobby
Who is really surprised to see that the american tobacco lobby got menthol cigarettes temporarily exempted from the ban? This law eliminates a multi-million dollar chunk of foreign competition from the american cigarette producers while they can just go on and crank out their flavored smokes.
not sure how this can
not sure how this can prevent anyone from smoking clove cigarettes. roll your own tobacco is still legal, as are cloves from the spice section of a grocery store. buy the two, crush the cloves, mix them together, ta da; clove cigarettes.
Cloves Smokes
tagged as:- result
I so here u all I have smoked cloves for over 15 years 1 to 2 packs a day I am litterally a clove smoker. I do not have any lung problems I am in no worse shape from my years of smoking cloves than any other smoker out there. For the matter that they are banning cloves because of the kids I say BULL**** I paid close to $8.00 a pack where I live and here in Wyoming it is hard to even find cloves to begin with!!! First of all they need to regulate the sale to minors not ban prodcts the problem lays with kids getting smokes not what they r smoking!! Besides most not all but most kids cant coff up the money for cloves exspecially when they can get a CAMEL or MARLBRO for 2 to 3 dollars cheaper. Get real Us clove smokers have been paying more for our habit for some years now so FDA back off!!!!!!! I unfortanately cant stand any other smokes I'm down to odering online I paid 31 dollars in shipping for a carton.
Just another small (when
Just another small (when compred to the bank and auto bailouts and HEALTHCARE) liberal inspired new law to take away your choices. These nasty old clove cigs target teens! HELLO!! It was ILLEGAL anyway for teens to buy any cigatrette. Just enforce the laws that were already in effect.