Interesting Psak: smoking Parliament cigarettes on Yom Tov

The issue of smoking on YomTov has been discussed many times and very thoroughly by the poskim and by those who learn the topics in depth. The debate revolves, largely, around whether or not smoking is nowadays still considered important or appropriate for all people equally. Nowadays when there is a taboo against smoking and while some continue to smoke cigarettes many do not, perhaps smoking has lost the status it once held as being appropriate for everybody.

There is now a new halachic debate about smoking on yomtov, but it isnt the act of smoking that is the subject of the debate. Rather, it is a new problem caused by a recent redesign in Parliament cigarettes with the company including writing n the cigarette paper along with the company logo.

The problem with the newly designed cigarettes is that by smoking one is essentially erasing the written text.

The question was asked of Rav Binyamin Chuta, a posek and author a number of halacha seforim, and he responded saying that the prohibition of erasing is only when erasing words, not when the entire item with the surface on which words are written is being destroyed. He said there is still room to prohibit it and there is a debate about this point, so if relevant a question should be asked of a competent rav.

A Mir Yeshiva student who considers himself addicted to Parliament cigarettes claims that Rav Elyashiv held in a similar situation that the erasing in this manner is a problem. He says during Pesach he will smoke a different brand unless the manufacturer (Phillip Morris) solves the problem.

Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef has said that smoking these cigarettes on yom tov would be allowed because it is a "psik reisha" that he is uninterested in the results of and it is connected only to a rabbinic prohibition. Adding to that is the fact that the words are being erased in a backhanded manner, as all the smoker is doing is inhaling the smoke and not actively erasing the words directly, so one could be lenient and smoke these cigarettes.
sources: Kikar and Kikar

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