Escort and Rayo Papers No Longer Manufactured!
Dear D&R Tobacco Customers:
We regret to inform our Escort and Rayo Cigarette Paper customers that these brands have been discontinued by the
manufacturer. As you may know, Clinton Tube Company (manufacturer of Premier, Escort, Rayo, Filterite and Excel) was recently acquired by Imperial Tobacco PLC (Rizla, Club, Joker and EZ-Wider). As part of the consolidation, the lines of cigarette papers by CTC
have been eliminated. Our remaining inventory in stock will be the end of product availability for Escort, Rayo Free Burn, Rayo Rice and Rayo Hemp Papers. We regret any inconvenience this announcement has for our customers and hope you understand the production decision for Escort and Rayo Brand papers is beyond our control.
Many of our Escort paper customers (along with D&R) have observed variation in paper material for as long as a year and a half ago. When we first brought the change in paper to their attention, we were assured that it was some sort of intermittent production fluke. Then without notice, early this past summer, all the Escort papers came from CTC in the new 
paper style. We learned at the recent RTDA Tradeshow (July, 2004) that the production company had changed paper manufacturers without notification. The recent announcement to eliminate all the CTC papers by Robert Burton Associates (the U.S. distributor for Imperial), has been the icing on the cake. In a way, this is a sad note of departure for a unique brand that has provided quality and value for our customers over so many years. (Since Escort was the first cigarette paper that we featured in 1992, elimination of the brand also elicits some personal sense of loss for D&R). Please call to discuss alternative cigarette paper selections from a variety of manufacturers. Thank you.