Few, Proud, Tobaccoless

"It's hard to overestimate the importance of tobacco to the Marines," explains the AP.

With the few remaining shreds of tobacco nearly gone, the Marines here face the prospect of being involuntarily enrolled in what could be one of the most successful programs to end nicotine addiction in history.

Comments

[Andrew Lynch]

I'm thrilled to see that no one here is pontificating (yet) about the dangers of smoking, the compromised effectiveness of a soldier undergoing withdrawal symptoms, and how much we can ask Big Tobacco to pay for any failures this addiction causes on the battlefield.

[Lefty]

Wait til they get a load of the local hash.

[omnibus bill]

I feel bad for the Marines, but they apparently haven't figured out what the Army has known for years: there's a a readily available substitute for dip and smokes.

You just get some instant coffee, and put a big ol' "pinch between your cheek and gums", as Walt Garrison would have said. It tastes awful, but it keeps you awake for those long nights standing in a hole in the ground. Best of all, there's no flash of light to give away your position, and no nasty smelling smoke - you wouldn't want anything to cover up the natural aroma of your sweaty, Olympic caliber three-weeks-without-a-shower body odor or the all-permeating stench of JP8 and motor oil.

It does raise the question, of course, of whether the coffee was organically grown in an ecologically harmonious way, and harvested by indigenous workers employed under fair labor standards, but that's a matter for another anti-WTO protest day.

[Glen]

I was in and around Viet Nam for quite a long time. I can't imagine combat without tobacco. Of course, I also can't imagine driving a car without tobacco.