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Topic: Are you a smoker?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-18-2010 06:54 PM
quote: Lyle Romer
Such a system would not be voluntary. My idea would be that you must present your cards to get charged the premium/tax in order to buy cigarettes.
I wasn't clear in what I was saying. My term "drop out" of the system basically means the smokers would give up the habit because it was too expensive. And then the smokers who have been smokers for the long term still have some considerable chance of developing lung cancer anyway. That also turns out to be one the justificiations some people I know use to continue smoking.
quote: Lyle Romer
I know the same can be said for obesity but until you get to morbidly obese levels, the risks of major medical issues doesn't go up anywhere near as high as smoking makes it go.
That's not true. Lots of fairly thin people drop dead of massive heart attacks. You don't have to be obese to have high cholesterol and clogged arteries.
quote: Sean McKinnon
If there is a large enough market for non smoking establishments they will be created. If enough non smokers choose not to patronize smoking establishments then business owners will have to go non smoking to stay in business.
The problem is many non-smokers have simply tolerated smokers in places like bars and restaurants because they didn't want to get involved in any confrontation. There's at least a few smokers who get angry and even violent if someone nearby says their smoke is bothering them. It's either that or the person complaining about the smoke is called a pussy for having problem with it. This cultural factor is part of why the smoking bans are implemented. But even they don't entirely remove the element of confrontation. I've seen militant smokers raise all kinds of hell when told they couldn't smoke at Harlows, a local bar that has to have a non-smoking policy due to its entrance being in a hotel lobby.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I don't drink so I see alcohol the same way. Alcohol use harms the liver and other parts of the body. It can cause cancer of the mouth, liver, throat, and stomach which also puts a burden pn the country's health care system.
That's true, but far fewer people in the US die of alcohol abuse. The CDC says 13,000 Americans die every year from medical problems related to long term alcohol abuse. When you count alcohol related accidents and drunk driving deaths the toll is still well under 50,000. Roughly 400,000 Americans die annually due to long term smoking habits. Another 38,000 die every year from heart and lung disease acquired through second hand smoke. A non-smoker in a bar may have a greater chance of dying from second hand smoke than he does from the booze he's drinking.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-18-2010 10:37 PM
I am a kind of cigarette smoking nihilist. I smoke WHEN and IF I decide to smoke.
I can smoke one cigarette and not smoke again for 2 years. I control when I want to smoke. Tobacco does not control me.
I never smoked until I was 18. My father would have beat the shit out of me if he ever caught me smoking... Literally. He beat the shit out of me for lesser things and he promised me an even more severe beating if he caught me smoking. Then he died. It was about a year after that when I figured that, since he couldn't beat the shit out of me anymore, I could smoke if I wanted to.
The first pack of cigarettes I ever smoked was a pack of Gauloises I picked up while in Paris. I only did it because I could. The old man couldn't do anything because he was dead. Besides, it was legal. (Far be it from me to break the law... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) )
A few years later, I was smoking an average of two packs of Newports per day. Sometimes I would smoke more. That didn't include the joints I would smoke. What the fuck? Who was going to stop me?
I tried to quit a few times, mainly because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I'd quit for a year then take it back up again. I think I quit two or three times. I don't know for sure. I never really counted.
I would smoke anything. I smoked Marlboro or Winston. I smoked lights or menthols with equal enjoyment. I went through a phase where I only smoked Dunhills and there was a time when I smoked Chesterfield Kings. The ones I liked the best were hand rolled cigarettes made from tobacco I got right out of the fields in North Carolina. (Or, at least, that is what the guy who sold the stuff to me said.)
Then there came a time when I just decided I was done smoking. I don't know... I was bored with it. Smoking didn't float my boat anymore. I only smoked because I was addicted. It took about a year to get down from 2+ packs of cigarettes per day to about half of a pack per day. I'm not certain but maybe my wife had a lot to do with it. After that, I started taking Wellburtin and chewing Nicorette. It took me about 4 months to totally quit. I didn't touch another cigarette for about 4 or 5 years.
Right now, I couldn't care less whether I smoke or don't smoke. In the last year, I have probably smoked about 6 to 10 cigarettes. I don't even remember. If I want to smoke, I'll cop a ciggy. If I don't want to smoke I won't. It took many years for me to come to this place in my life but, looking back, I can't understand, for the life of me, how anybody could let tobacco rule their life. (Mind you, tobacco DID rule my life for nearly 20 years!)
As I see it now, I don't see why a person can't smoke a single cigarette, a pack of cigarettes or even a whole carton of cigarettes if he wants to. But I also don't see why a person HAS to smoke a cigarette if he doesn't want to. If he enjoys smoking, why not? But, if he is smoking just to satisfy a habit, it makes no fucking sense!
Somebody who can't smoke a single cigarette just because he wants to smoke a single cigarette and not feel compelled to smoke the whole pack is a weakling in my book.
Somebody who smokes a cigarette just because he thinks other people will look upon him as "cool" or "though" is just as much a weakling.
Right now, I could take a smoke out of your pack, light it, take a drag from it, inhale it and hand the burning cigarette to you and I would not want to smoke another because I just don't fucking care about tobacco anymore.
As far as I am concerned, I could take it or leave it. If tobacco ceased to exist tomorrow, I would not miss it. If the skies opened up and it rained cigarettes, I would not care. I might smoke one just to see what they tasted like. (They'd probably taste like shit because they've been all over the ground.)
Yes, I know tobacco is addictive. I've been addicted. Honestly, I can't understand why people feel like they have to smoke when they don't really want to. Shouldn't you smoke because you enjoy it?
Bottom line: Smoke if you want. Don't smoke if you don't want. It's no skin off my ass.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-19-2010 10:21 PM
quote: Sean McKinnon
I am sure a lot more people die from smoking related illness than alcohol related illness but more people also die in auto accidents than from handguns.
On average 17000 Americans die in alcohol related car accidents yearly, which is roughly 40% of all auto accident deaths in the United States. But that doesn't really have anything to do with 400,000 Americans dying annually of their smoking habits.
Here's an interesting statistic: 430472 deaths as of March, 2010. That toll is the sum total of all American military deaths in combat from World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the wars we have been fighting in the middle east over the last 20 years. That series of conflict spans almost 100 years. Yet it takes only one year for nearly as many Americans to die from a smoking habit. And when you factor in the second hand smoking deaths then smoking surpasses that combat deaths total.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I just do not see differentiating between deadly addictive drugs.
I do. Especially when the death tolls are radically different in scale.
Nicotine via cigarette use is the world's most deadly drug. It kills more people than any other drug. A lot more people. In the United States, cigarettes are the 2nd leading cause of death. Heart disease deaths from poor diet and sedentary lifestyle is the top cause. The top two causes of deaths in the US are preventable causes. But the food industry and America's tradition of camping out on its collective big butt is a broad (no pun intended) and complex problem. The issue with nicotene isn't complex. The tobacco cigarette is the specific culprit, one that is easy to attack and worthy of being attacked.
quote: Randy Stankey
As I see it now, I don't see why a person can't smoke a single cigarette, a pack of cigarettes or even a whole carton of cigarettes if he wants to. But I also don't see why a person HAS to smoke a cigarette if he doesn't want to. If he enjoys smoking, why not? But, if he is smoking just to satisfy a habit, it makes no fucking sense!
I think addictions may affect different people to varying degrees. I'm not going to call a smoker a weakling if he wants to quit smoking but cannot due to his addiction to nicotene. I've never been addicted to nicotene so I don't personally know how hard it is to quit. Based on what I've seen it sure as hell doesn't look easy.
Differences of addiction severity could lie in individual personality and will power. Body chemistry and genetics could be involved. It took my parents seeing my maternal grandfather dying of lung cancer to quit smoking and the sight of that disease process convinced them to quit cold turkey. My boss' older brother had a collapsed lung and spent a week in the hospital due to an illness stemming from his smoking habit. That guy has wanted to quit smoking ever since, but more than 10 years later he's still smoking like a chimney stack.
I've often seen comparisons of nicotene addiction being as intense as heroin addiction. That really sucks. That statistic, the death tolls and lots of other info has been commonly available for many years now. I guess the folks I would label as "weakling" or "dumb ass idiot" are the teens and other young people who start smoking now despite all the warnings.
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