Is this some kind of a dumb joke? Not to Charles Southwood, the 53-year-old head of Death Tobacco. He says the product is more than just a smokable pet rock-he hopes it will persuade smokers to stop. “In most polite society,” he says, “people would no more smoke than chew tobacco, but most advertisements present the opposite view”-Of people enjoying themselves.
Still, Southwood is obviously not hoping to put himself out of business. He says he has sold about 25,000 packs of Death-without advertising. “With a name like Death,” he says, “you don’t really need to advertise.” He wants Death to go national, appealing mostly to the twentysomething crowd that he says is too young to fear the Reaper. A spokesman for the Tobacco Institute dismissed the brand as a fad, but says major manufacturers wouldn’t want their product displayed anything closer than “several blocks away.” Southwood is undeterred. He’s applied for trademark on a menthol brand: Green Death. Can Death Lights be far off?
