I've been hearing about chop-chop, or homegrown tobacco, for years. "Dodgy" was always the word. Dodgy taste. Dodgy quality. And only dodgy corner stores, markets and tobacconists sold it. The other word, though, was "cheap," which is the word that piqued my interest. With cigarette prices set to rise 12.5 percent each September until a pack costs around $40, and the 2017 budget announcing roll your own tobacco will be taxed the same as tailored cigarettes, I wanted to know if chop-chop would be a viable replacement.
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After a bit of asking around I found myself the proud owner of 400 chop-chop cigarettes. Pre-rolled into tubes, they came from a couple of different sources, with 100 of each flavour. That's two types of reds, one blue, and one menthol. They cost $30 a box, but as I found out later I could also purchase the same tobacco in RYO for $100 per half kilo—the equivalent of $5 per 25 gram pouch.To test these babies I gathered together a team of the most committed smokers I know. Claire, Katja, Travis, Julian and I smoke about 28,600 cigarettes each year between us. We've smoked the local cigarettes of 46 countries across all the continents bar Antarctica, and the total cumulative number of years we've smoked is 44, or a decade longer than old mate Bryan lived. Long story short, price hikes are going to hit us hard. So naturally we wanted to know how chop-chop smokes compare, and whether we'd make the switch to get the savings.
Cigarette 1: Red A
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Cigarette 2: Blue (second on left)
Cigarette 3: Red B
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