Cigarettes don't kill people, people kill people

LOL Good one, at first I thought you were serious.

Hmmm - that one is fine - and I do understand the reasoning - IF death is all that happens.

Thing is - unless one kills oneself as soon as suffering ill health outweighs pleasure in life - the equation is not necessarily so simple.

Of course, 'tis a lottery - some smokers puff their way happily to healthy old age, and get knocked off their bicycles at ninety

And, one may - if susceptible - simply drop dead from a heart attack.

If one is not so lucky, the joyous options of slow death of the limbs - with "salami" amputations - or the "spit-pit" (as we cruelly called the respiratory ward full of smokers - and ex-smokers - one old fella blew the place up by smoking in his oxygen tent!) with its cargo of emphysema, and chronic obstructive airway disease, and its "fruity productive" coughers. Ewwwwwwww....... And the heart failures and the cardiac cripples and the lung, mouth and throat cancers....

Not that any of this stuff deters folk - until the hospital I worked in was deemed non-smoking, the coronary care unit nurses used to stink the place up with their frenzied smoking in the tea room!

But - smokers - do factor suffering into your equation, if you are choosing to smoke because you prefer a short life and a happy one. Unless, as I said, you are happy to kill yourselves if you draw the short straw healthwise - cos the chronic illness stuff can go on for years and years and years and YEARS!!! Most folk seem to prefer to hang on, rather than top themselves, though.

Now - have I convinced myself re drinking too much, and all that? And the other unhealthy things I do? Probably not! Doh...

Mind you, you can live a perfectly healthy life - and do whatever the (changing) fiats of the health professions tell you to do - and still end up a chronic wreck. C'est la vie. And I agree - I see not much benefit in a few years longer if I am frail and unwell and old. Hmmm - perhaps I will start smoking again....lol...


Monger - I used to love the smell of some cigarettes - and before I started smoking, too. But only when it was a single one. My English tutor in my first year of uni used to smoke a Benson and Hedges or two during tutorials - very spaced out - so there was only ever the smoke from one cigarette in the room - I loved that smell - and the way the smoke curled around in the still room - it makes the loveliest patterns, no? Very dreamy....mind you, so was he.....

dlowan
My brother has the hardest head of any individual known to humankind. If he doesn't formulate the notion, he doesn't follow it.

Sorry - not sure what that means, Edgar?

You mean he doesn't listen to other people?

Who, really, does?

Or, if we do, we generally mull, and think we came up with the idea, if we DO listen! Lol.

I

Edgar, is your Brother Pa Dutch? The habit you posted would make an excellent bumper sticker in Dutch country and it gave me a good chuckle.
I guess it doesnt translate into Ozzmanian.

Deb, theres an entire sales theory that no one is talked into buying anything. you convince the mark (customer) to convince themselves that they came up with the idea in the first place. That is the entire sales pitch and marketing theory behind many "high end' products

I'm definitely not speaking for everyone who gave up smoking, but I do know that one of the things that drives me in trying to avoid smoke in my environment, is that I worked very hard to stop smoking and recover what I could of my lung function. I generally don't say anything to smokers, as long as they don't try to smoke in my home or car. Then all bets are off, as Setanta can attest from having his nekkid butt pushed onto my back stoop - and the door closed behind him.

Right I made my lungs suffer enough, now I need to protect them some. Of course, I now live in a polluted city too....

yeah - I think about that as I healthily walk to work through rush hour traffic morning and night.

Especially night - when I walk through the parklands - but right by the road - in the fond belief that if someone sees me being dragged into the bushes from a car they will toot, or something!

Farmer
The brother wanted a job drawing comics, way back in the 60s. His theory was, "If they stick me on the low grade lines, such as romance stories, I won't take it. If I can't start at the top, I won't start at all." 40 years later, he is still getting started. Could be the Dutch. My Grandfather is said to be mainly what they call Black Dutch.

Beth - I don't think any of the smokers here are talking about smoking in homes or cars of folk who don't want them to.

How the culture has changed!

I can recall being shocked the first time someone said no when I asked if I could smoke in their car!!!

dlowan - youch! Isn't there an alternate route for you to walk?

No, Little k - well, I can make the parklands bit shorter - and I do if I am not really tired - but it makes the walk quite a bit longer - which I like when I am fresh.

I may adopt it more now - cos it is really getting dark when I am walking at night.

Though - my cubicle is disappearing! I may end up back in the damn suburbs again! I have loved the hour or more's walk a day that the city location gives me - dark parklands or no.

Craven wrote:

Being annoyed by an unwarrented characterization of self-righteousness is a point in itself.

Just so we're clear on this, I have never approached a smoker in person, self-righteously or otherwise. I do, however, avoid smokers for reasons of my own health, as most reasonable people in my situation would. On the other hand, what smokers do in the privacy of their own home is none of my concern. Cut the filters off. Seal the windows. Have a ball.

Greyfan,

The "your" was misplaced. Not "your self-righteousness".

I've no qualm with those who absolutely detest smoke, and no qualm with those who think people shouldn't smoke, and no qualm with those who avoid smoke.

Now it does get irritating when people decide to tell you that you shouldn't smoke.

I hadn't started a thread about smoking but rather the restrictions in place on smoking and some decide that it's a place to tell smokers to quit.

<shrugs>

Craven, isn't that just the way of the forums?

Yeah, and I don't really care that much. Heck, as I've said before on A2K "self-righteous" is something that to me is just a paradox.

See, I grew up hearing that, it's sort of an inside joke than only a handful of the people here will get.

In a way, you can't alledge self-righteousness without being self-righteous. Every time I use the term I'm being self-righteous (and isn't it a funny term?). So I don't really care, I just think it's wicked funny to see polarization because of smoke.

Only in America (and some crazy places like Oz and Canadan Land).

Oh, but I'm serious about wanting there to be a change in laws allowing for smokers enclaves.

Like I said, I don't mind not smoking around non-smokers, but would like to have a smokers bar just so I can drink and smoke at the same time.

I don't drink that much these days, but when I do I wanna smoke. In California we can't drink outside or smoke inside so we are limited to bars that have patios and such.

It's a pain, but not one I care so much about. But I still think smokers and non-smokers should fight.

Definitely part of the self-righteous busy-body thing, imho, was one story I read about - all too typical a story, I'm afraid - about the restructuring of an old-age people's home.

They had had two free-time rooms, kinda like canteens, say - a smokers' and a non-smokers' one. But: new building, new rules - and I do believe the management formally couldnt help it, its the new laws. Smoking is forbidden everywhere inside now. You want to smoke, gotta step outside.

These are people who are 70, 80, 90! And they're being forced to stand outside, in wind, rain and weather, to smoke! For what? To save their health? Its their last few years, they're not gonna get that second youth anymore ... why can't it be their own choice? They dont have a house of their own anymore, to go back to to smoke in private ... I thought it was positively cruel. So did they.

(The new canteens, no-smoking all, also no longer have the basic kitchens, largely run by volunteers from the neighbourhood, that served a coupla hot snacks for in-between meals along with a chat and some cosiness - now, they got vending machines with crisps and M&M's instead. Budget cuts ... so ******* sad.)