Tobacco Documents Online

This both worrisome and amusing R.J. Reynolds document may make you laugh and cry for smokers all at once. It is a compilation of consumer responses to questions about what smokers like and dislike about smoking, and what features they would like to see in cigarettes in the future. The questions were asked as part of market research to help develop new products consumers wanted.

Among the more worrisome items are the comments that reveal the extreme fire hazards cigarettes pose in everyday practice. When asked to identify problems with cigarettes, respondents' comments included: "If sparks drop off, they should go out immediately rather than burn holes in your clothes,"

and

"Want cigarettes that will go out when sitting in an ashtray."

When asked about their frustrations with cigarettes, comments included:

"I have to hold the cigarette away from myself so the fire doesn't fall on my clothes," and "Holes burned in pants."

When participants were asked to list "situations when you most enjoy cigarettes," one response was:

"Lying in bed."

One person said, "I want a cigarette that puts itself out. It wouldn't be a fire hazard in bed."

Such comments point to a serious fire hazard from cigarettes.

Ironically, to the question "When do you least enjoy cigarettes?" a respondent replied "When I have money problems." But to the question of "When do you smoke the most?" came the response "[When I have] money problems."

When asked how they could make a cigarette that doesn't bother non-smokers, participants' ideas included "Make passive smoke enjoyable and beneficial for everyone to breathe--like a medicated vaporizer," "Provide smokers with gas masks," and "Give non-smokers names to the mob."

To the question, "How to make a cigarette that 'hibernates' when you put it down"? a respondent stated, "Hire a guy with a squirt gun to follow you around." Another more practical smoker suggested leaving out the additives that keep a cigarette burning.

Participants repeatedly requested information on what is in cigarettes and how they are made "so I'll worry less." Other frequent requests were for cigarettes that go out on their own, cigarettes that don't stain teeth, don't stink in an ashtray, don't annoy others, etc.

With regard to future products, smokers were very imaginative, but their ideas reveal a conceptual disconnect between how much they enjoy taking nicotine, and yet how much they dislike smoking cigarettes:

"Something like an insulin pump that is computer controlled to give you the feeling of smoking on a programmed schedule."

"Like the movie 'Total Recall'--a way to make you think you just smoked a cigarette, but you didn't. All you have is the memory of enjoying a cigarette."

"...little chambers is mass-transit vehicles where you can go inside and breathe smoke without even lighting a cigarette,"

and

"Suck smoke from special tubes at the bar and do without individual cigarettes."