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Comment by dcw303 | Hacker News Reader

As an Australian who has been living abroad for the better half of a decade, I've noticed ever increasing prices and ever restrictive policies every time I've been back.

Being a very occasional social smoker who should probably quit anyway it hasn't bothered me, but I did find it just a bit ludicrous when I tried to buy a pack at Safeway. The exchange went something like this:

  me: Give me a pack of Peter Stuyvesants, ah, um, I think the light ones in the blue colored pack.
  staff: They don't have colors anymore. We can't show you the packet. You have to tell us which ones.
  me: Really? Ok, fine. Well, just give me the 8mg low tar ones, whatever they're called.
  staff: They don't have mg measures on the packets any more.
  me: So how do I know which ones are the light ones?
  staff: You just have to know.

I eventually picked one of the packs at random. Not what I'd call the best harm minimisation strategy.

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> Not what I'd call the best harm minimisation strategy

At some point in your life, a tobacco company has marketed something at your in such a way that they've conveyed a mistruth; they lied to you. Shocking, I know.

"Light" cigarettes are not better for you. There is no "harm minimisation".

Tar and nicotine are a "measured" by percentage of puff multiplied by the expected number of puffs in the burn duration. Cigarettes are "lightened" by adding perforations in the filter tip so the smoker inhales air at the same time. This lowers the concentrations of smoke, lowering the measurements above.

The industry standards for "light" and "ultralight" are just boundaries around tar measurements.

The problem is the "burn duration" used to calculate all this is normalised at a static rate and not at real flow. It's basically a made up length of time based on the observation of lighting a cigarette and letting it burn down. There's less airflow through the tobacco in a light cigarette, so it burns a lot slower. Its smoker gets more drags.

The amount of tobacco and nicotine and tar is the same. The amount delivered isn't as appreciably different as a smoker might like.

This is reflected in countless outcome studies. Just as many people die from smoking light cigarettes.

> The amount of tobacco and nicotine and tar is the same. The amount delivered isn't as appreciably different as a smoker might like.

If light cigarettes have any amount less tar, then that's still an improvement.

Anecdotally, I smoked for 8 years and used ultra light cigarettes (1-3mg) as a tool to cut down and eventually quit.

Also an ex-smoker. I don't think the psychology or physiological methods of breaking addiction are that clear or consistent for populations. Feeling like you were getting less might have been the progress you needed, irrespective of your actual blood-nicotine levels.

Conversely, I dicked around with various NRTs, various actual doses but nicotine cravings and the fear of even worse cravings kept me returning to cigarettes. To quit, I had to go cold turkey. It was the psychological and physical finality that let me let go.

For me the finality was important. I'd read a fair amount about breaking addiction and people describing it as the most traumatic thing in their life and that's a narrative that's very commonplace in quitting services, NRT products. It makes quitting a very scary prospect. Moreso to an anxious, risk averse guy in his late 20s. In reality, even cold turkey is only horrible for a short amount of time. A couple of weeks... Which is nothing for the lifetime and quality of life you regain.

I reflected on fear-of-quitting a month after my last cigarette. https://thepcspy.com/read/breaking-the-habit/

Anyway, my point above is that in terms of actual damage done, a cigarette is a cigarette. There may be slight variances and you can trick yourself into thinking different things, but physiologically, the same stuff happens.

Light cigarettes are not light. They have perforations around the filter. The machines that measure the tar draw air though the cigarette and also through these perforation holes, so they measure less nicotine and tar.

But people smoking these cigarettes block the holes with their fingers or their mouths, and so they draw air through the cigarette but not through the perforations.

And if the Safeway has a pharmacy, they wouldn't be allowed to sell tobacco products even in their storefront. At least in California.

Pharmacies are typically separate to supermarkets in Australia (potentially legally so). Tobacco products are sold at a different counter in the supermarket though (since they have to be served by a person).

Why can't they show you the packets? That's crazy...

Because they might be attractive to teenagers. They're not shown anymore in the UK either.

The UK still shows the packs (for now).

I believe that in the UK now cigarettes have to be hidden behind screens/not displayed as a matter of course.

But they've not yet moved to black/white boxes and I imagine you can still see the boxes if you ask.

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