Mein Gott! It seems smoking is now forbidden in Germany. Initially I thought the Bavarians would reject such laws in favor of tradition, but no! Even the festival tents will be Rauchenfrei.

Smoking in fest tents will still be allowed in Rheinland-Pfalz, whereas in Bavaria it won’t, although most fest tents can be found at the October fest in Munich

German smoking ban to go into effect[435th Air Base Wing Public Affairs]

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As the smoke filled my chest, my shoulders lifted so much that my keys actually rolled over in my jacket pocket. It was like my mouth was full of something viscid and metallic. My throat seemed to radiate heat forward and backward in the space where I stood. There was a taste, a little like burnt popcorn. I touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth, a gesture meant to calm the incipient cough; it lit there, a little electric. I pulled in more smoke, blowback from the cold wind in my face, and my lungs, raw and open from the workout, were suddenly soaked in it. The light of the world fell on me, soluble and absolute, and I looked around to see if anyone was watching, half hoping they were. I was a little high, something like all the other highs I know.

Learning to Smoke [Esquire.com]

Previously • Dethroner’s Smoking archives

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At a news conference in Brooklyn, state Atty. Gen. Andrew M. Cuomo said the arrests served as a message that “organized crime still exits. . . . We like to think it’s a vestige of the past. It’s not. It is as unrelenting as weeds that continue to sprout in the cracks of society.

Seems the Mafia still has its hat in the game. Every bit a part of America as baseball.

Full Story  [LATimes.com]

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The average THC levels evident in the hashish and marijuana that is available today is far higher than in the same products available in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. In fact, there has been a 1.5% increase in THC levels in the average bag of weed since only four years ago.

To illustrate: that dime bag you bought off of the kid down the street in 1988 had an average THC content of around 3.5%; today’s level is more like 8.5% or more.

National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow fears that the increased levels of THC are responsible for an increase in marijuana-related emergencies, and that, since many adults remember the weed of their youth as harmless, they are not taking seriously this “problem.”

On a personal note, I have barely touched marijuana for years for precisely this reason; today’s pot is way, way too strong for me. Used to be I had to smoke a few bowls to get a high and one too many and I had a headache; today, two small hits and I’m uselessly stoned off my ass, unable to even tell if I have a headache. Where is the tasty, low-grade ditch weed of my youth? All we have is this wildly expensive hydroponically grown cloned super bud.
Fuck that shit, I’ll just have a beer, thanks.

U.S. marijuana even stronger than before: report [reuters.com]

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Hair slick with his own filth. In need of acrid roborant, assembled fellow patrons be damned. Harnessing the power of the sun for his own insociable vileness.

A hero.

(Photo: Unknown)

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Smoking is a very bad habit and one I enjoy immensely. In an effort to mitigate the expense ($8-a-pack prices in New York are brutal) I bought a “Premier Supermatic II,” an automatic cigarette making machine. A step down from the top-end “Supermatic,” the primary difference is an open-bottom design (the Supermatic has an all-rubber pad), a plastic case instead of a metal one, and the ability to only make “King Size” cigarettes. Since I only ever smoke King Size, which are the default size of American cigarettes, I figured I’d save a few bucks and settle for the Supermatic II.

The Supermatic isn’t a cigarette rolling machine but instead an “injector.” Fill its tobacco hopper, mount a “slug” (an empty paper tube with a filter inside; a cigarette without the tobacco), and turn the crank. The first part of the turn compresses the tobacco and snips off any errant bits, while the follow through shoves the tobacco into the tube. The machine also has a rubber nub that grabs the tip of the slug to prevent it from being dislodged when the tobacco, guided by a serrated ovipositor, is injected inside with a spring-loaded clang.

It took a little practice to figure out the right amount of tobacco to put into the hopper and how much to tamp it down—too much and the cigarette is too tight to draw smoke through; too little and it won’t pack back to the filter, which makes for a fragile cigarette—but now I can crank out eight to fill my cigarette case in ten minutes or less. And if you ignore the little tuft of loose tobacco at the end (which can be snipped off with scissors if you like), they look, smoke, and taste just like store-bought American Spirits. (I am using a tin of American Spirit tobacco to load them.)

You can’t beat the price. (Even if you count in the cost to society of my eventual lung cancer.) The machine was $35. A thousand empty tubes—five cartons worth—were $12. And the tobacco, which I’m guessing will make about two-thirds or more of a carton’s worth of cigarettes, was $18. Price aside, I’m looking forward to blending my own tobaccos to fully explore what this carcinogen has to offer before I give it up entirely.

I purchased my Supermatic II at RYO Tobacco, who were not very helpful when I asked if they had any suggestions for tobaccos for a novice at blending.

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Cigar maker CAO is showing off these new LED-backlit humidors, complete with an on-board humidity and temperature readout. The best part is that the humidors are free—with the purchase of 20 CAO Vision cigars, started at $240 for the “Catalyst” up to $320 for the “Prana.”

More images of the humidor, which looks a bit like a MacBook with the lights off, after the jump.

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1. Smoking can shorten your penis by as much as a centimeter. Erections are all about good bloodflow, and lighting up calcifies blood vessels, stifling erectile circulation. So even if you don’t care all that much about your lungs or dying young, spare the li’l guy.

That stresses me out enough to consider lighting up.

Also, I find it amusing that “Research [was performed] by the editors of Men’s Health Germany.” They’re not good enough to write, but they’re good enough to do cock science.

Update: Forgot the link! [Men's Health]

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Greg M., keeper of the (now famed) War Zippo of Hanoi, wrote in with pictures of the lighter itself. It’s a good looking bit of kit—too nice to carry around as a daily use piece, although it would be a perfect conversation starter for lady and feller alike.

As promised heres a few pics of the zippo I picked up in Hanoi. Perhaps some of your readers may be able to help me with authentication. The dash marks on the base date it as a 1969 zippo which corresponds with the date on the front. The name on the lid (Dennis S) is interesting. I think its had a replacement lid though.Id like to find out about the crest on the back. Obviously Dennis was a bit of a hippy! I bet this was used to smoke some fine bud though a REAL shotgun!

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I traveled round the world (twice) with my old brass Marlboro Zippo. Never came close to losing it. I even had people running out of bars to give it back to me after I left it on a table in a drunken haze.

Ironically, on my way home on the last trip, I purchased a shiny chrome Zippo to replace my (soon to be retired) old workhorse. I think I must have left it on the plane.

I also shelled out quite a large sum of dollars in Vietnam for (what I want to believe) is an original war Zippo. There are thousands of cheap fake Zippos being sold on the streets of Hanoi and HCM City. But this one was locked away in a display case at the back of a Hanoi gift shop in the French Quarter. When I asked how much she wanted for it she told me $100! I laughed at her and told her she was ripping me off. She told me it was real. But I walked out.

5 days later I went back into the store (after completing a grueling trek in the highlands) and bartered her down to $50.

It has the legend “If you want to make love, smile when you hand me this lighter back” carved onto the back. I thought no Vietnamese forger would come up with that!!

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The number one thing I hear from non-smokers about indoor smoking bans is that non-smokers hate going to a bar and coming home smelling like stale cigarettes. Who can blame them? Even we smokers are impressed by the musty persistence of smoke.

If you’re a smoker you’ve come to terms with smelling bad to non-smokers, even if your ever-stuffed nose prevents you from smelling your own reek. Here are a few tips for mitigating the smell—you’ll never be able to make it go away completely, but you can at least make an effort for the sake of others.

• It’s in your hair, dude – Smoke travels up from your mouth, over your face, and into your hair, no matter how forcefully you may expel it from your pursed lips. While most of us won’t be able to take a shower after every cigarette, be sure you’re washing your hair at least once a day, preferably before you go to bed, saving your pillows and sheets.

• Wash your clothes after every wear – This is doubly true after spending time smoking indoors, as even your pants will slurp up every greasy particle, remaining skanked until the next wash. You might be able to get away with wearing your jeans a couple of times if you smoked only outside, but shirts are right out. Your coat, scarfs, and hats are no exception to the smell, but you’re probably just going to have to accept that they’re going to smell since washing or dry-cleaning them after every wear is impractical.

• If you don’t want to smell like smoke, don’t smoke – It’s tempting to try to sneak a smoke before an occasion that makes you nervous, like a job interview or a date. Whether you choose to or not is up to you, but be aware that even just a few short toots are enough to put the smell on your body, clothes, and breath. Try to resist.

• Don’t compensate with cologne – Cologne should be subtle anyway, so you’ve ruined much of its mojo by smoking in the first place. Even worse, though, is trying to pour on so much that it covers up the smell; it won’t work and you’ll just end up smelling twice as obnoxious.

• Wash your hands – A lot of the smell of cigarettes stays on your hands. If you want to try to minimize the olfactory assault, take a short detour to the washroom after a smoke to clean your hands and face. The smell will still linger in your hair, clothes, and lungs, but you can at least take the edge off. (And nicotine on the face is rumored to cause wrinkles, should you care.)

• Febreeze works – It’s no replacement for soap or detergent, but if you’ve got no other options, a few blasts of Febreeze (or generic equivalent) will lock in the smell for a while. This is a good option for those coats and hats we couldn’t wash before. As you should with any new cleaning solution on fabric, test a little bit in an non-critical bit of cloth first to make sure it won’t stain, like the underside of a collar or your friend’s back.

Image via Notes from Spain’s photostream.

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Somehow hookah smoking gets past the city-wide indoor smoking ban, despite the fact that the tobacco smoked is just as carcinogenic as regular cigarettes. (Studies vary on the degree of harm from hookah smoke, but come on; it’s still tobacco, which is plenty harmful all by itself.)

My girlfriend fondly recalls smoking a hookah above a Mediterranean cafe in Kansas City a few years ago, but the recent implication is that hookah bars are the new thing to do for those too young to legally drink booze or those looking for a social occasion that is more relaxed. Yet I don’t know of a single person who actually goes to hookah bars with any regularity. Is this a real trend or just the false hype of a slow news day?

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