JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It's marketed as pipe tobacco, but some smokers are using it to roll their own cigarettes.
Users can do it with a machine at the store or can buy their own handheld machine. They put in some tobacco, pack it down, slide on a filter and jam it in.
Some worry it's encouraging a bad habit.
Selling the so-called pipe tobacco is significantly cheaper than selling cigarettes by the carton, and it's designed to taste the same.
"Over here we have the Pall Mall Ultra, Pall Mall Lights, Pall Mal Reds, and then we have a pure blend, which is just a tobacco flavor," Roll Your Own retailer Taasha Bullard said.
Bullard's retailer and others like it save about $20 per pound thanks to a loophole in the tobacco tax law.
Because of the label, smokers can roll their own, allowing them to light up at a lower tax rate.
"Economics, it's cheaper, really," smoker Chris Henry said. "You get maybe, I don't know, like twice the value. It's better flavor, too."
It may be cheaper for smokers, but the question for the community is, is it worth the health risk?
"Certainly we consider all smoking bad, and anything that can help people to stop smoking," said Dr. Thomas Szwed, of St. Vincent's Medical Center.
Szwed said all forms of tobacco are harmful, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fears using this "roll your own" alternative avoids regulation requirements and actually increases tobacco use.
Not to mention, it's lost revenue.
The CDC reports that in two years, Florida missed out on $63 million it should've collected in taxes, burning cash the state could have used.
"We do about five to six, seven runs a day, all day," Bullard said.
It's no sweat to smokers who are saving money.