Laredo was a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...

kit introduced by

Brown & Williamson Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation was a U.S. tobacco company and a subsidiary of multinational British American Tobacco that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhan ...

in the early 1970s. It was sold with the slogan, ''"If you want something done right, do it yourself"''. The kit consisted of a tin of tobacco, a plastic cigarette-making device, and loose

cigarette papers Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes (commercially manufactured filter cigarettes and individually made roll-your-own cigarettes). Rolling papers are packs of several cigarette-size sheets, often folded inside a cardboa ...

and

filters Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component th ...

. The Laredo brand tobacco and a filter were inserted into the device, and then a lever was pulled to compress the tobacco. Another lever slid the plug of tobacco and the filter into an empty cigarette paper tube to form a homemade cigarette. Although the gimmick was hailed as being innovative for its time, the tobacco itself was criticized for being bland and the devices had a tendency to jam. According to one smoker, "Invariably, the tobacco wouldn't distribute consistently, so every cigarette was different — always bad. Some were so tightly stuffed that there was no way to draw. Some were so loose that they tended to go up in flame (or the tobacco just fell out)". The product was eventually discontinued.

References

Cigarette brands Brown & Williamson {{product-stub