Roll-your-own cigarette

Roll-your-own cigarettes (also called RYO, MYO, rollies, roll-ups, burns, hand-rolled cigarettes, or simply rolls) refer to cigarettes made from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Roll-your-own products are sold in pouches or as tins of tobacco, sometimes including the rolling papers or cigarette tubes. Loose filters are available for purchase and can be added to the rolled cigarettes. Some people use a machine to assist them and some people use pre-rolled cones or cigarette tubes.

Hand-rolled cigarettes give smokers the ability to roll cigarettes of any diameter, thereby varying the strength of the cigarette. Technological aids—from hand injectors to large in-store machines—aid in the process.

In the United States, the Internal Revenue section of the tax code includes a personal exemption for people who make their own cigarettes and tobacco (done by shredding blended strips of tobacco leaves).

An amendment to the 2012 federal transportation bill caused roll-your-own cigarette shops to struggle and consider closing. In order for shops to continue using machines, owners must obtain a manufacturer's permit, file a bond, pay the applicable federal cigarette tax rate, keep records, print required markings on packages used for manufactured cigarettes, affix the U.S. Surgeon General's warning labels to packages and comply with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's minimum cigarette package size.

In Europe, EU regulations for tar and nicotine levels in cigarettes do not apply to rolling tobacco. Hand-rolling tobacco is taxed and priced at a lower level – about half that of packaged cigarettes. In countries where cigarettes are cheap or rolling tobacco is expensive, very few people use RYO cigarettes. By contrast, in the Netherlands about half of all tobacco smoked in the country is RYO because of price differences.

In the UK there are many different brands of rolling tobacco as it is the most popular way to smoke a cigarette, the top selling brands are Amber Leaf, Golden Virginia and Pall Mall.

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