Pipe tobacco is where the similarity and hopeful panacea to RYOers lie except for the fact that casings and toppings are prevalent in some of the blends.  That is correct sir, us RYOers are wondering if pipe tobacco was of the quality for us lowly cigarette smokers!  No disparagement meant to the fine art of pipe smoking as I enjoy the occassional bowl myself.  However, keep the importance of inhalation when smoking cigarettes in mind and the fact that a portion of RYOers are already weary of smoking packaged cigarettes due to the toppings, chemicals and now especially; FSC treatments.  We want clean, inhalable smoke, however contradictory that might sound to the anti and casual observer.   To summarize, the truth of RYO is twofold, those who roll for the savings and those who roll to avoid the certain death in a package, appreciate a quality tobacco product and of course the savings.

For comparison, traditional English pipe tobacco and cigarette tobacco alike is additive free and therefore; English.  Akin to the Reinheitsgbot, the German “act of purity in brewing” the English long ago demanded only the cleanest and honest crafting of smoking materials.  While that tradition is somewhat bastardized in modern times, English tobacco as a whole, both pipe and cigarette, will be some of the “cleanest” available.  This is what us RYOers and pipesters alike are in search of, not so much the traditional English recipes as most RYOers wouldn’t know Latakia from a lung biscuit.  What about the pH of pipe tobacco though, surely it’s not designed to inhale, much the same as cigars, or is it?  In fact, this varies so much according to blend that generalizations are suspect as usual.  A typical pipe blend can in fact have a quite low pH, or high acidity, which is ideal for lung absorption of nicotine as opposed to the higher pH of a typical cigar.  This is just a theory I’ve heard and evidently it doesn’t hold water, some pipe tobaccos can make for fine inhaling,  and quite a few will stuff and/or roll up to make a nice portable smoke!   The writings on the wall fellas, I can only hope we’re welcomed with open arms.  I wonder how GLP will stuff in a tube though, haven’t tried that one yet.  <cough>pipesmokerswincing</cough>

It’s a funny thing that more cigarette smokers haven’t considered this possibility, until now that is.  A matter of fact is that many tinned and pouched tobaccos have historically been sold as “smoking tobaccos” and even packaged with papers!  Hopefully these same blends still available today won’t now be subject to the surrealistic S-CHIP taxation plan, due to this fact,  as many more that are labeled solely as pipe tobaccos are just as suitable.  I’m currently enjoying a McC 2015 as I type, in a tube no less.  The secret is in the drying.  I don’t think this will catch on though because even RYOers like convenience and hour+ drying times add another hassle to the already arduous process of Rolling Your Own sticks, as some find it.   See you in the pipe forums!

Impressive and sometimes accidental advances in agriculture and curing enabled the development of tobaccos particularly suited to cigarette smoking.   The most influential being the legendary development of Bright Leaf or “yaller” tobacco by a snoozing slave who discovered the fortunate reaction that led to this most delicious advance in curing to date.   One chilly young man’s desire to stay warm and a near disastrous super heating of the curing shed made for the near perfect smoke sweet enough even for the ladies that  sparked worldwide demand.  Cigarette popularity was increasing exponentially by the year only decades after birth.

The civil war saw the advent of the peculiar taxation schemes on tobacco products that thrives to this day.  By this time, the cigarette industry was already a multi million dollar industry and the legislators took full advantage quickly.  Tobacco in general and cigarettes in particular boasted ever growing sales despite economic trends that inspired a plethora of creative tax schemes.  Not quite the bloated schedules commanded routinely nowadays but the onset of creative tobacco taxes took root early on making the bastardization of fair taxes on tobacco usual and customary.