[BB22]

There has been a lot of noise on this forum about this. Here are two facts:

Marcus does not smoke
Marcus could never hope to trade cigarettes

And here is some speculation:

Firstly, Marcus was planning to gift them to Bea exactly as he said he was. This is by far the most likely option as I think it is fairly plain that he had already signposted this by mentioning that he was going to give something to her, as he pointed out in the argument and nobody, as far as I am aware, disputed.

Secondly, it is possible that Marcus was planning to reveal them after everyone had run out of cigarettes so that everyone would be "grateful". This would fit at least one aspect of Marcus' personality.

Either way, in Marcus' world he undoubtedly thought he was doing something "positive". Although I think whether he is right about that is highly dubious.

Beyond that we do not really know very much. Either way the reaction in the House and on this forum has been predictably hysterical.

On a final note, two more observations. First, it is unclear to me whether this is in any way as bad as unilaterally requisitioning evicted Housemates' food stocks, as we have seen done on at least one occasion. Second, it certainly is not comparable, morally, to taking more than one's fair share of food supplies for personal consumption (although it is still unclear to me whether this has actually occurred and who is responsible).