Builders hammer together a company with coffin nails.

• Position: People - Grim Reapers brand of Cigarettes enter local market

Dan Norris, 50, wants to be sure you know one thing about his product: It'll kill you. His Castle Hayne company's name is Poison Inc., and it sells cigarettes called Grim Reapers. Each pack is emblazoned with a skull-and-crossbones.

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Norris, Poison's president, and partner Chuck Peters, 44, got the idea for the company from a news story about a California smoker who won a lawsuit by claiming he didn't know smoking would hurt him. "I said, 'What do you have to do, put a skull-and-crossbones on the pack?'"

Norris, who owned Wilmington-based Coastal Utility Contractors, was fed up with the construction business, saying competition had killed his profit margin. So he and Peters decided to try selling cigarettes to "smokers with an attitude"--bikers, bar hoppers and the like--who don't care about the risk. Peters designed the packs; Norris found the right blend of tobacco. They incorporated in July 2001 and began selling their smokes in January.

They had become friends in the early '80s while working as estimators for a Wilmington construction company. Peters, a Fort Smith, Ark., native who has lived in Wilmington since he was 3, supplemented his construction...