Tuesday, December 29, 2015

German Smoker News

I would naturally want to admit up front.....I'm not a smoker, but I've tended to view smoking in Germany as one of those thousand-odd things worth reviewing.

When I arrived in Germany back in 1978.....one of the first weird experiences was standing on a train platform and sniffing through the various scents of German tobacco and cigarettes.  At that point, some Turks living in the Frankfurt area were smoking some awful cheap Turkish-related brands imported into Germany, and it was the kind of scent that you just couldn't stand.

After a while, I came to note the hundred-odd brands that you might come across.....some from Turkey....some from Germany.....some from the US.....some from other European countries.

I noticed in German news this morning that a dozen-odd brand names are going to be retired in January.  There's a new EU standard coming.....with massive warnings on the cover of each pack and images (cancerous lungs I assume).  Some niche brands who barely had one-percent of the smoker sales.....are giving up.

Some of the brands giving up?  Winfield. Golden American. Lux. Crown. Peer 100.  Route 66. Fair Wind. Juno.  Cornerstone.

The anti-smoking crowd will probably applaud but these smokers who lost their brand will simply shift over to another or flip to the vapor world.

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