Marlboro to Introduce “Smoke Rite” 6 Cig Health Packs
Smokers rejoice. There is a new, healthier way to smoke, all thanks to the innovators at Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris). Marlboro has just released Smoke Rites, a new line of health conscious products for modern people with active lifestyles.
The concept was borne over two years of intense research at Marlboro laboratories. Head researcher Dr. Dylan Pantzenfahr explains, “Curing lung cancer is one of Marlboro’s top priorities. And while we can’t change the nature of [tobacco], we can change the way people smoke it.” Pantzenfahr is referring to serving size. To date there is no standard serving size for cigarette consumption. “It’s a tricky question,” says Pantzenfahr, “A man with massive lungs may consume a much larger serving of cigarettes than, say, a tiny person.” Nevertheless, in early 2007 Pantzenfahr and his team of specialists made it their one mission to answer the serving size question.
Early tests failed. The group ran into several technical and legal obstacles. Julie Lawson, the team’s resident psychiatrist, palms her face when discussing the initial trials. “It was the wild west. No one had a clue what a serving of cigarettes looked like. We had monkeys smoking cigarettes, men smoking catfood, women using corn cob pipes. Eight cigs, twelve cigs, we had to cut the 200-cigs-per-day experiment short because too many subjects were losing feeling in their limbs.” Julie shakes her head, “We didn’t learn what a serving was, but we learned if you smoke more than 200 cigarettes per day your urine turns black.”
But the smoke team didn’t quit. 420 million dollars and 18 months later Pantzenfahr made a discovery. “The serving size was still eluding us, but we found something amazing in the data.” One of the experiments compared people who smoked as much as they wanted each day with people who only smoked six cigarettes a day. Over 30 people were tested, and the results showed a 14% lower chance of lung cancer in the people who smoked just 6 cigarettes. The message was clear, smoking 6 cigarettes reduces your risk of cancer. Pantzenfahr’s eyes light up when he remembers the day he made the connection, “I double checked the findings, I turned to my research assistant and told her we’d just stumbled upon a way to cure cancer through smoking.”
Marlboro’s CEO, Jeff Skinling, was skeptical. “I didn’t want to throw another half billion dollars into a scientific hunch. I had them run a double blind study. Then a triple blind, then a quadruple blind study before deciding we were blind enough to move forward.”
When Skinling moves forward, he moves fast. Within months Marlboro created the Smoke Rite brand, produced a commercial, designed the packaging, and even built a bio-green-environment-safe production facility. “Now people know they are being healthy and environmentally chic when they smoke,” says Marlboro customer sensitivity chief Nancy McKerberster.
The Smoke Rites are scheduled to hit gas stations and grocery stores within the month. Smokers will now have the option to buy a traditional 20-cigarette pack, or a Smart Carton of Smoke Rites. Each Smart Carton contains 12 small 6-cigarette Smoke Rite packs. Additionally, some regions will have the option to buy Smart Carton Plusses which will include a bonus seventh cigarette in each 6-cigarette pack.
“This is just the beginning,” says Josh Glott, co-vice executive head of development and strategic marketing productivity at Marlboro, “Beyond the commercials and the promo spots on morning shows, our next batch of Smoke Rites will promote even further awareness of smoking health as we plan on including heart, check mark, and jogger silhouette icons on each pack. We’re even planning future Smoke Rites to be sold in a pack shaped like a healthy lung.” Glott holds up a magazine ad and smiles. The ad shows a mom in a sports bra holding a heart-shaped bowl filled with cigarettes.
But not everyone approves of the healthy cigarettes. Grace Null heads a privately funded interest group dedicated to speaking out against the re-packaging. “You think people are really going to smoke just 6 cigarettes a day? No sir, people will end up smoking that entire Smart Carton.” Null cites a study to back up her claim. But Pantzenfahr is quick to reply, “Her claim is true, but only for people who don’t have control over their smoking habits. For people who are in control, the Smoke Rites are the healthiest choice.”
The company’s strategy of product miniaturization is spreading to other health conscious corporations such as Jagermeister. “Alcohol is a powerful disinfectant,” says Jagermeister corporate researchologist Joe Bellows, “Studies show males between the ages of 28 and 55 need extra disinfecting at the end of a work day. Jagermeister Disinfectaboosters are a healthy way to disinfect your liver. And because of their small size, they’re fine to drink before driving home.” Bellows is boastful of his company’s new stance, though he admits Jagermeister is not the first to do so, citing Michelob Ultra’s movement to inform the public of the important role beer plays in exercise and fitness.
Uzi has also joined the bandwagon, taking the first groundbreaking steps toward pistols and sub-machine guns that load “Smartables” two bullet magazines instead of the more dangerous fourteen bullet magazines. A safer gun for safer crimes.
Jeff Skinling doesn’t seem concerned with all the corporate piggybacking. “The smaller pack thing is just the tip of the iceberg in our new campaign for health. Just wait till you wrap your lips around our Vitacigs.” Skinling is referring to an upcoming project that will inject vitamins and minerals into packs of Marlboro Smoke Rites. Each Smoke Rite pack would contain up to 15% of the recommended daily allowance of niacin. “Smoke 7 packs a day, and you’re over 100%!” claims Skinling. Niacin is also known as vitamin B3. Outside of Smoke Rite Vitapacks, niacin can only be found in meat, vegetables, nuts, fruits, dairy products, and grains.
While it may be years before the negative and slanderous term “cancer sticks” fades from American lexicon, Pantzenfahr is hopeful that his research along with the new repackaging and re-labeling will finally sway the public to see Marlboro cigarettes for what they really are: immunity sticks. And as for current public opinion? “I don’t need to be able to pronounce the name of every single ingredient on every label of every product I buy,” says one American consumer, “I just need to know if I am being healthy when I put it in my mouth or when I give it to my children.”
What do you think of Marlboro’s latest escapade? Share your thoughts on corporate spin, food product marketing and “Smoke Rites” in the comment board!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Very good. Pantzenfahr – inspired
Very, very funny. ROTFLMAO, as my inner teenager would say!
Hey Honey, are you off to the store to pickup the wings and cheese for the big game party? OK then, don’t forget to get me a couple of 6-packs. Bud Lite and Marlboros. Thanks babe……
though not a smoker myself,I have seen many indigenous people of the world smoking on nat-geo. maybe smoking is instinctive to humans.
Superb article, had to check it wasn’t the American equiv of April fools day in England. The bit that really got me was “the 2 bullet Uzi!” and guys were taking this for real???????
Evidence shows that substance use in general is natural to mammals. There are psychoactive jungle plants that the indigenous population uses, and they can tell the plant from another very similar-looking one by looking for signs of big cats and other animals taking some for themselves!
The problems crop up when the plant drug is extracted for one of it’s active constituents… cocaine is the perfect example. Chewing coca leaf is actually both nutritious and beneficial, because it compensates for some of the negative effects of life at high altitudes. Taking cocaine HCl, however is not beneficial in any way.
So scary! I was just reading this thinking “Next they’ll be infusing cigarettes with antioxidants”. WOW! Actually, I’m surprised it took them so long to come up with such a repulsive idea.
If they were smart they’d infuse cigarettes with cannabis, which has antineoplastic (anti-cancer) effects. I don’t have the link at hand, but recent research is showing pot to reduce the incidence of many kinds of cancer.
The planet gave us good medicines, and yet we don’t use them, because drugs are so much more profitable. This is no doubt why the AMA has rolled over on pot — Big Pharma has several cannabis drugs in the pipeline.
Brilliant, brilliant satire of the 100-calorie pack bulls**t. Cigarettes are addictive. Carbs are addictive. Everyone knows that those 100-calorie packs INCREASE consumption. Like many other posters, had me sucked in for a while. But then, so did Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (google it if you haven’t read it).
Wow. Just wow.
Brilliant satire, sir!
Two tiny details: as a gun enthusiast, I will note that magazines contain entire “rounds” and not just bullets. Also, “10 round magazines” seem to be the threshold at which we can stop thinking about the children. Nobody seems to care if it holds 10 rounds or less, but once a magazine can hold 11 or more rounds, apparently nearby babies start falling out of bassinets, dogs and cats start living together… complete chaos.
Keep sticking a fork in my head on this one. It doesn’t seem done yet…
I am my own caffeine maximum dose experiment…Ew, me kidneys ur ‘urting, gotta run!
Liar, liar… Patzenfahr… Trying to determine if this is an original “article” or if it was borrowed from another source. Anyone know?
Well done, Mark!
Are you sure this isn’t a joke? This actually made me laugh out loud, and I can’t find any other information about this on the net, anywhere.
I got one word for smokers:
VAPORIZER
there will always be people smoking plants, so why not cut all the cancer promoting crap(smoke and it’s ingredients) and just vaporize the stuff???
Ideally they should all stop of course and i wouldn’t even vaporize, but if we are realistic this is the only way to better the situation!
Regards,
Rob
I like the rite in “Smoke Rite”, like in “Last Rites”.
I was at 2 packa a day until one day I just quite without thinking about it! Never missed it and now I’m allergic to cigarette smoke (can’t be around it). Thankfully Ohio is non-smoking in ALL public places including bars and restaurants.
The time has come to ban smoking in all public places and confinr it to private places between consenting adults.
I recently watched a patient in hospital – who was prepared for surgery on a foot injury – hobble out of the hospital for a smoke first.
Sad; but I have no doubt that he would have believed every word of Mark’s article.
I almost believed it. Not that cigarettes are healthy, but that Marlboro would in fact try to introduce something like this. Because it’s no more ridiculous than those 100-calorie “healthy” snack-packs-of-crap. Less poison is not healthy.
Brilliant! Had me going there at first. I bet Philip Morris wishes they’d thought of your marketing ploy. I, too, wish I had your writing ability and wit. Keep it coming!
I would have beleived the 6 cig pack, it will be the only way all the unemployed smokers in america can afford cigarettes. Great marketing strategy. Over 10% of people have no job and here in Jersey they raised the pack of cigarettes to $7.65. They would also be great for those who only smoke when they drink. Times like this I am glad I quit smoking 11 years ago.
I think this is a great idea on behalf of the cigarette companies to cut down on cancer. Maybe the next idea could be to offer a “fun size” cigarette pack, you know, like the candida bar companies (whoops, I meant candy bar companies) provide.
This kind of logic can be applied to almost any of today’s chronic problems. Take teenage pregnancies for instance, if we teach our kids to only have unprotected sex six times rather than 12 times, we can cut the pregnancies down by 50%!
This kind of logic is just what this country needs. Thank God for cigarette companies to bring this to light, in the best interest of our health of course.
Mark, what I am really starting to worry about is the number of your followers that are asking if this is a joke or real!?!?!?!
Should have saved it for April 1st – brilliant work!
It this for real? You can never tell sometimes. Even it it’s real, a 6 cig pack still would not be healthy.
Wow, this is satire, right?
Very funny the thing with the black urine, huh…
This is the idea I’ve had like forever.
It’s easy to smoke another cigarette when you got a pack of 20. This would keep smoking habits low.
there are 7 cigarettes in the picture…
It’s a Smoke Rite Plus pack. On the box it even says, 6+1 bonus cigarette.
Is this a joke? Smoking can’t cure cancer and it can’t ever be good for you. This is ridiculous.
OMG are you serious? When did people lose their sense of the ridiculous and become so gullible (or is it self-absorbed and self-important?)? Of course it is a joke!
It is SATIRE, foolish mortals. Look it up and then read it again. Or, you know, quit breathing.
every 2nd comment is claiming that this is a satirical piece, if so why is that when i cut down to 6 duzzas per day my lung capacity increased 50% and i quit smoking ice? 6 cheers for mr morris +1 free cheer for my brain hooray
Let me get this straight…. it took them millions of dollars to find out that smoking a small amount cigarettes is healthier than smoking a lot of cigarettes….. someone deserves the Nobel peace prise!
I suggested this idea years ago. I worked with smokers for many years, and my father smoked and died from complications from cigarette smoking. I also wondered why smokers had to smoke a pack or two packs per day. I thought, why not just 5 cigarettes or 3 cigarettes per day? In fact, a few convenient stores in our are were opening packs and selling cigarettes individually until it was ruled illegal to do so. I thought that was a great idea. For someone that is trying to quit, just buying one at a time might do the trick. Otherwise, they have that entire pack calling to them to smoke the whole thing.
“why not just 5 cigarettes or 3 cigarettes per day?”
Because the nicotine hit wears off in about 15-20 minutes, prompting the cigarette addict to reach for the next. Making it less convenient might cut it down some, but the vast majority of cigarette addicts go through at least one pack a day for that reason.
It’s a bit like the blood sugar roller-coaster that prompts the person trying to follow a high-carb (low fat) diet to reach for something to eat every hour or so. I can empathize with the cigarette addict, because I was a carb addict, and I know how it feels.
It’s like a dripping faucet. You can successfully ignore it. For a while. Then it really starts to get on your nerves. Eventually, you cave in.