Since I started smoking the pipe about 2 weeks ago I have been thinking a lot about this. Among people in my age group, college students, cigars are a much more common method of enjoying premium tobaccos then pipes. In a lot of posts I have read here people talk about how their SO believes the pipe makes them look too old or like a grandpa. However, due to one predominant factor I think that this line of thought is backwards.
A huge aspect of college life is being poor and as a result we are as cheap as possible. I have had numerous discussions with friends on how to eat for less then a dollar a day. At parties only the cheapest beer and liquor is consumed and as a whole we pirate more movies and music then any other age group. Why then is it the norm to be smoking a 5 dollar cigar rather then a bowl of tobacco worth
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I wasn't aware of the huge price difference between pipe tobacco and cigars before I started. If I was aware of this I would have picked up the pipe much sooner
. To top it off, I believe that I enjoy the pipe better then cigars. It could be the fact that since the tobacco is so much cheaper I am able to try out more kinds. In my two weeks of pipe smoking I have been able to try as many different blends of tobacco as different cigars I have smoked in two years. Plus I am also not worried about the fact that I'm smoking 5 days worth of food!
It would be great if this stigma could be broken. In the 90's we had a cigar boom, now it is time for my generation to discover the joys of the pipe.