The way cigarettes are packaged in Europe came as a complete surprise to me. Having grown up in the south, the Bible belt, the Tobacco Territory, I’m used to a lot of pro-tobacco sentiment, even in the face of people dropping dead of lung cancer (or other grisly tobacco-related cancers, as in my family). But somehow, we just let the media keep painting a pretty picture.

Well, it’s certainly different here, and in a very surprising way. Both the execution and the general public response are quite disturbing, to my eye. The execution I’ve photographed and collected below (don’t look if you are squeamish). The general response seems to be to keep on keeping on (smoking), and maybe even to take it a step further, like one would collect baseball cards. Do you have the dead fetus? Yep, got it. How about the non-erect cigarette and the sperm count? No, don’t have ’em, gimme those!

So, mainly for my own disbelieving self, here’s a photo collection of all the ones I could get.