DEFINITELY NOT ADDICTIVE

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police have arrested a shoplifter who aroused suspicion by waddling through a supermarket with 177 cigarette packets in his trousers.

"He'd filled his trousers in the truest sense of the word," a police spokesman for the western town of Olpe said on Friday. "They were so full of stolen goods he could hardly walk."

The thief, in his twenties, was helped by three accomplices who formed a protective shield by holding newspapers in front of the man and his bulging trousers, police said.

Staff alerted police, who arrested the four as they attempted to transfer the loot into their car. (full story)

The funny thing is, cigarette shoplifting should, in theory, be merely a temporary problem. See, if somebody's swiping ciggy's at 177 packs a pop, their lung capacity is gonna shrink down to the size of a walnut pretty quickly. By shoplifting trip #3 or #4, the perp wouldn't make it pass the express lane without running out of breath.