Some Company Still Makes Profit

The current global economic slowdown has seen many Malaysian companies posting smaller gains, some even slipping into the red. It's tough time, and the October-December results would reflect more accurately how businesses in Malaysia are affected by the crisis.

But something is so mind-boggling, that a tobacco company still posts growth in earnings despite the difficult time. That shows that Malaysians don't stop smoking even in the time like now. They may not have the money to eat, buy books, school the children, bla, bla, bla, but the smoking habit must go on. Isn't that scary? And cigarettes are not cheap these days. A box of 20s is priced at about RM9, that makes a stick at about 45 sen. Quite a luxury, no?

My partner is not a heavy smoker. Even, in good times, he hardly finished a box per day. These days, he replaces his normal box of cigarettes with loose tobacco which he buys for RM15 per pack. He rolls his own cigarettes with special cigarette papers. I don't know what they are called. But they are plain white paper cut in small rectangular pieces. If you feel like puffing, you just roll tobacco in them, and there you have, home-made rolled cigarettes! A pack of that loose tobacco may last my partner about two weeks, if I'm not mistaken.

The concern is, I'm not sure if those home-made cigarettes are 'any worse' than the commercial ones. I'm afraid they would cause much more harm. Well, the commercial ones have filters, for example. The self-rolled ones have none of those. I tried arguing with him about this once. But since I didn't have much 'evidence' to pursue my case further, I just stopped half way. Furthermore, If you are almost, errr more of less, a little bit a smoker yourself (means you smoke like two or three sticks a day, the most), it's a bit difficult to argue, isnt' it?