Just as Marlboro killed two Marlboro Men, R.J. Reynolds has disemboweled Joe Camel. Cigarette makers can't help but turn on their own. Although the new package design for Camel cigarettes seems innocuous and perhaps even alluring, it should come with a warning. The Surgeon General? Screw him. Flavor conscious smokers beware: Camels now suck with reckless abandon.

R.J. Reynolds has been pulling asinine tricks with Camels for some time. Think of all those nonsense smokes like "Turkish Royal," "No. 9," "Exotics," and "Turkish Silver." I've had most of these, which are generally "light" cigarettes severely lacking in genuine tobacco taste and laced with silly flavorings. In my defense, I'm sometimes dead broke and such putrescence is often on sale.

As if their cigarettes weren't jerk-off enough, they thought it clever to sell them in slide boxes and "art packs." Even worse than marketing to children, they have been pandering to the club going, light beer drinking, Starbucks-ass college kid demographic and obviously to California's gayest one percent. Clearly, we should have seen this coming.

The bold, rich flavor that Camel smokers like myself have fallen in love with has been gutted in an apparent appeal to slouching, skateboarding-ass schoolboys who smoke Marlboro Lights. R.J. Reynolds boasts of "world-class smoothness." Precisely the problem. The new generation of Camels are smooth to the point of blandness, having the flavor strength of a "light" cigarette. It's like smoking mayonnaise. Apparently, they contain excessively more of that "Turkish" tobacco they're so damn proud of. Camel Filters now taste much like those pitiful Turkish Golds.

I cracked open my first carton of the new Camels, lit up, and thought about quitting. This corporation has twice shafted us, as this punk move comes after the abolishment of Camel Cash, which scored me cartons of free smokes. Conspiracy theory: R.J. Reynolds has been surreptitiously infiltrated by rabid anti-smokers and Philip Morris stockholders.

I did quit. For 11 days I traded up to a real smoke: Carter Hall in a straight briar. Cigarette cravings were abruptly quelled by the troubling memories of those bastardized Camels. Sensibilities vanquished by addiction, I bowed to the beast and began smoking Marlboro Red. In the days before my palate hit puberty, I smoked these fast-burning losers. I stumbled upon a superior smoke when a recession hit. I was unemployed and Camels were on sale - and so it began. They were exquisite, and paired marvelously with dark beer or coffee. Swilling coffee and chain-smoking in a working-class diner is the enlightened man's meditation.