Roll-up! Roll-up! Leap in tobacco sales as smokers trade down

(guardian.co.uk) The number of roll-up cigarettes smoked in Britain has leapt 35% in two years, with sales of more than 5,000 tonnes of rolling tobacco a year and marketing of Rizla cigarette papers being seen everywhere from music festival tents to iPhone screens. ... Imperial said yesterday that with the price of cigarettes rising, roll-up sales had been quietly growing for some years. But, said Imperial chief executive Alison Cooper (an occasional cigar smoker), the trend moved up a gear as the economy worsened: "We've seen the [roll-up] market up 13% last year, and a big gain the year before that ... people are trading down." Continued

Photo: Frank Latta, pioneer cowpuncher, smoking hand-rolled cigarette. Bozeman, Montana, 1939 (Arthur Rothstein/FSA/Library of Congress).