A Nation Built on Smoke

When we first established Microkhan HQs a few years back, we were immediately struck by the nabe’s vibrant cigarette bootlegging scene. For a while there, we couldn’t walk 10 feet without having someone pull up alongside us and whisper, “Newport, Newports.” (The pace of solicitations has since decreased a bit, in part due to mounting legal pressure.) We were always mystified as to how such semi-covert bootlegging could be a profitable enterprise, given the sellers’ relatively tiny markup. But th