Thoughts on Smoking: A Politically Incorrect Analysis
But even more innocuous or less emotionally charged occasions require buffering. Consider a gathering of friends who have met to discuss or gossip about anything at all. The event must take place, as it were, inadvertently: it must appear extemporaneous, the expression of the moment, off-handed, improvised, if the atmosphere is not to become oppressively solemn and even chillingly official. Smoking is one of the modes of burning off earnestness. Should one of those present say to another, “Tell us a joke so we can laugh” — the universally recognized purpose of joke-telling — the one so designated finds his enthusiasm dissipating in stammers and throat-clearings. After a convivial supper my mother usually commented, “We’re having such a good time, aren’t we?” and the table froze up. Or if two friends meet and agree explicitly, “We are here to talk. Let’s begin,” silence is the inevitable result.
As Walker Percy puckishly explains in Lost in the Cosmos, “by modifying certain neurones [sic] in its central nervous system,” an organism responds “to certain signals in its environment by a behavior oriented toward other segments of the environment.” Lighting a cigarette is a way of pretending that we have met for other purposes, that is to say, we have met to smoke together though in between puffs we may, as it happens, get a little conversation in. When things get too close to the bone we exhale and stare briefly to the left. And when the essential fatuity of all our works and days becomes distressingly evident in those embarrassing intervals we are all familiar with, we light up a Lucky, shunting awareness aside with an akimbo elbow as we raise the match. Smoking allows one, so to speak, to be the designated drinker.
In Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincy develops an analogous argument, recommending the dinner table as the right place to pursue an intellectual conversation or a flight of eloquence. If it so transpires, as it often does, that one’s inspiration suddenly flags, one can ward off embarrassment by passing the salt or inquiring solicitously if one’s interlocutor would not like a little more wine. Since in our time we are generally less fluent and erudite than our noble ancestors, we need considerably more help limping along in our table talk. Smoking is thus an excellent dialogic prosthesis.
Or when one sets about writing an essay on smoking, half a pack scumbles the glare of the blank, accusatory page. There are, of course, other techniques of necessary evasion. German philosopher and playwright Friedrich Schiller kept a drawer full of rotting apples, which he sniffed when inspiration faltered. Gustave Flaubert relied on his lover’s mittens and slippers, which no doubt assisted him in the composition of Madame Bovary. But smoking must be regarded as one of the most potent of parrying tactics at our disposal, indispensable insofar as it helps us keep up the illusion of the unpremeditated nature of our aspirations.
Je fume, et alors? asks French author Jean-Jacques Brochier in his book of that title. I smoke, and so? It’s an excellent question.
This piece is pure victimization which is part and parcel of the PC culture you claim to loathe. You smoke? Who cares? As long as it’s far from my nose and lungs, it’s your choice and your damn business.
Scr@w your nose and your lungs are safe from the “pretend” second hand smoke. NOBODY has ever died from that. It was all a propaganda lie to scare the public into ostracising smokers and turning them into the new pyrrhas.
It’s people like you that send the nicotine-nazi’s into peoples homes to have them arrested and fined (and their children taken away) because you imagine you smell smoke in your backyard or through apartment walls.
Just to go on you point:
The actual smoke itself may not “kill” but exposure is linked to ill heath that can lead to death.
This is a link to fact-sheet provided by the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/index.htm
IMO and those of many more, it is a reliable source.
And the CDC NEVER lies or distorts facts…..? Snort! Give me a break. All you have to do is go back a couple of years to the bird flu epidemic! GASP!
The CDC is involved in tracking the “disease” of “gun-violence”
Yeah, thats a medical issue, not a criminal issue, right?
No axe to grind, no big-government control freaks THERE right?
I’m an old fart and I spent hours in conference rooms out of which smoke poured when the door was opened. I mean it would literally pour out into the hallway. The thing is, if there were any truth to the second-hand smoke crap, I and all my ancient colleagues would already be dead – along with most of the baby-boomer population. Yet here we are – still breathing – a living testament to the lie of second-hand-smoke. Hell, the boomers’ primogenitors would have been snuffed out before the boomers had a chance to draw their first second-hand-smoke infested breath. So just shut up about second hand smoke. That myth is for saps and dupes – and bone headed liberals – but I am being redundant.
We smell the neighbors cigarettes when they smoke, as do our other neighbors. It’s not always “imagined”.
Then you need better insolation, because if you can smell smoke you are also losing heat in the winter and letting in cold air during the winter.
That’s your landlord’s problem and you should thank your smoking neighbor for showing you the flaws in your building.
So what? I fart in your general direction.
I don’t care WHAT the medical statistics are.
Keep your stink out of my air! I don’t have a right to fart in your face, and you don’t have the right to pollute the air I breathe with your foul stench, either.
Take your juvenile habit OUT of the public space!
The world cannot be customized for your comfort. Sorry. Public space is just that. If you think the outside world is killing you stay home in your private space where you can make and enforce all the rules you can afford to. When you come out you have to deal with the rest of us.
At what point did it become hip to insult total strangers? You give yourself too much in the way of permission.
I don’t drink, but I have the good manners to skip passing judgment on those who do. I’m not particularly religious, but I was raised to respect those who are.
What’s so different about smokers? Somewhere along the line, it became fashionable to condemn smokers in public. Smokers are already well aware of the health risks — God knows we get told about them often enough. And most of us are not proud of the habit. But spare me the phony “I can smell second hand smoke from the next county” outrage. And don’t ever come up to me in public and start preaching to me. You might hear something you won’t like at all.
Well, scr*w YOU and your stinking addiction. Have a nice cancer.
What a sensitive and loving reply. Your neighbors love living next to you, don’t they.
Yes, we have all heard about the dreaded second hand smoke. It’s so deadly we hear of hoards of pets dieing from second hand smoke daily. All those cats, dogs, hamsters,lizards, the extremely sensitive birds etc. dieing. They’re not? Then we hear of these unwilling Guinea Pigs making frequent visits to the Vets for respiratory problems. Not that either huh? Just how many of these beloved pets contract cancers, lung/respiratory disease from living it’s life filled with second hand smoke? Just 0.02 percent, and then the main ‘victim’ was dogs with a diagnosis of Infectious Canine Tracheobronchitis? (Kennel cough)
Doesn’t this contradict the “studies” of second hand smoke? But surely this living study can’t be wrong.
Why don’t nonsmokers be honest. Just say you don’t smoke or want it around you. You can force your morals on others, along with your overwhelmingly strong cologne, but they can’t on you. Quit lying to yourself and following Alice down the hole. You make it too easy for the government to do as they please with their threats of destruction.
What I find interesting is people have smoked since the beginning of time. Only recently has there been an issue with cancers. Direct relation as to when it was decided to use deadly chemicals on the masses. Doesn’t it seem more plausible this is the culprit?
Look at the facts. Many generations smoked unhindered until it was decided immoral to smoke in the late 1950′s. People lived to nice ages and was active till the end. When they introduced chemicals on the masses, suddenly we have large group diagnoses of Alzheimer’s, cancers, Diabetes, high blood pressure. We now have ‘designer’ diagnosis of ADHD, depression, panic attacks and the like. Just adding more chemicals to the mix.
If you don’t want to smoke, fine, but you can’t and won’t stop me and mine. You can believe the lies if you want, but the facts don’t back your theory. I’ll light up every time you try to suffocate me when you take a bath in your stinky cologne.
As French author Jean-Jacques Brochier so eloquently put it, I smoke, and so?
If you don’t like it, you’re the one going to move.
“If you don’t like it, you’re the one going to move.”
Well, I hope you like the smell of my farts too.
No, you’re the one who is going to be driven to stay in your own home and keep your foul, juvenile habit to yourself, BY LAW, because you and your ilk have refused to honor basic courtesy.
But that’s not good enough for you. You DON’T just want us in our homes. You are trying to drive us out of our homes if you have your way. Tough! Just TRY and ticket me. Just TRY and drive me from my home. You people disgust me. Typical libtards into everybody’s business and preachy socialism.
The question is not at all why do you smoke , but rather what do you smoke . Frenzy-nevrotic cigarette smoking habit versus cigar-pipe – self made cigarette. Quantity versus quality. Since quality costs more , you are compelled to smoke less and only in certain occasions when the smoking habit can enhance your mood or social life. A cuban cigar will harm you much less than 10 cigarettes.
Who was it who said “A pipe gives a wise man time to think and gives a fool something to do with his hands”?
I love it! I’m a pipe smoker so I’m going to remember that. Thinking of having a pipe right now actually. Pipes are the best. I never get negative feedback. On the contrary people often strike up a conversation with me because of it, and when someone comments on the smell of the smoke it’s invariably positive.
Cigar smokers aren’t bothered either and those things really do stink to high heaven. The bigotry and hypocrisy in people against cigarettes is astounding to me.
It’s true that we’re not excoriated like cigarette smokers, but we are hit by the tobacco taxes – which zipped by absurd levels long ago – and equally banned from restaurants and bars which is very annoying. All businesses, though open to the public, are privately owned and should be able to manage their affairs as they see fit. But the prohibitionists of our age had to have it ALL their own way as such people always do. When are the rest of us – smokers or not – just going to tell them “NO”?
Upon starting high school at 11yo; the entire school was treated to a “show” in our very cool new theatre. Nobody said a word, no introduction, nothing. On stage was a bicycle wheel with cigarettes all the way around which were lit and then as the wheel turned each cigarette (about 20) was inhaled somehow one by one, the smoke passing through a white handkerchief. When all cigarettes were “smoked”, the handkerchief (now with a thick black tar-stained area on it) was circulated among the seated students. The second object passed around was the jar in which the tar from the cigarettes was collected; and at that point, we were asked to “smell it” as the jar was passed to each one. THAT “smell” made me heave … and it stayed with me for days afterwards … I still, to this day have vivid recollections of how I felt at that moment. In addition (as if that wasn’t enough); we were asked to take a good look at two big jars filled with formaldahyde, one with a smoker’s lung inside and one with a non-smoker’s lung … I can still “see” them to this day too. Needless to say; as an athlete in high school I had an aversion to smoking anyway because I wanted not only to compete in track events, but also maintain my position on the high school soccer team. I never did smoke. But … I never wanted to take away other people’s right to smoke either; it simply never occurred to me to do that then, and it still doesn’t today. So David … it would never occur to me to write a column like yours either … imagine that. I guess I just don’t understand some things.
Please. It isn’t necessarily “noxious political correctness” to point out when something smells bad, creates litter, and damages health. Let’s not play the affirmative action tribal game and give some scourges a pass because they’ve been “oppressed,” so to speak.
It’s a legal product but you people treat smokers like they are meth-heads.
I’ve been saying for years that if you let these moral nazi’s go after people doing something legal – but that you don’t like, eventually they’ll come after you.
Haven’t we seen that trans-fats, sugar, raw-milk, meat, etc., ad nauseum?
It’s a legal product but you people treat smokers like they are meth-heads.
Exactly…its all politics….try doing to beer companies what they do to tobacco companies, and see the outcry.
Luring children to cigarettes?
Hello, wine coolers…hard lemonade…jailbait for Zima?
Coors light was DESIGNED for schoolgirls for crissake
I’m a non-smoker, but last I saw, nobody plowed into a schoolbus full of kids after one too many Marlboro’s
Letting the government rape the tobacco companies becuase “ewww they deserve it” is a bad precident.
That genie is out of the bottle….do we like where we are now?
The anti-smoking activists went after the tobacco companies for the money, with the moral justification that smoking is bad for your health, or cigarette smoke smells bad, etc. With that justification, the States and Feds were able to raise taxes to exorbitant levels, for the good of everyone, especially “for the children”. And the scientific community jumped on board, with many biased “studies”, supported by government grants. Very similar to what is going on with the global warming scare today. If there is money to be made through taxation (and redistribution), they are for it.
Isnt it amazing, the “anti-smoking Nazis” also tend to be (or align themselves with) the same left wing busy-bodies that are all about legalizing pot?
College slackers bitching about “corporate greed” poisoning us, but they want more of a CERTAIN KIND of smoke in their lungs?
And push “hemp-hipness” in every product imagineable, so they can to encourage kids to get high, too?
Same busy bodies that want the government everywhere, except where THEY hang?
Right, I thought so.
Lolly,
Hhhmmm, I’m guessing you are also addicted to tobacco, as you, too, deny its unhealthy affects on yourself and others. Tobacco–as well as its addictive nicotine–has been PROVEN, in scientific and medical studies, to cause cancer and other health problems. And, it’s also been proven that the smoke emitted is just as unhealthy to innocent bystanders.
“Haven’t we seen that trans-fats, sugar, raw-milk, meat, etc., ad nauseum?”
None of those products leach carcinogeous chemicals into the air to endanger the lives of anyone close enough to inhale them. So, their affects are limited to the ingester alone.
As I responded to GDI’s post (post #12), “Written like any other addict who refuses to acknowledge the Truth because their addiction is more important to them than life is–whether it be their own, or anyone else’s. It’s the nature of the gorilla on your back, buddy. It’s killing you, but you don’t CARE!”
“trans-fats, sugar, raw-milk, meat…None of those products leach carcinogeous chemicals into the air (or water?) to endanger the lives of anyone close enough to inhale them”
Sugar cane fields are burned before harvest.(http://sites.google.com/site/sugarcanepm/pre-harvest-burning) This does not put harmful products in the air? Global warming devotees, among others, say meat is harmful to the environment and to its consumers. Dairy operations are just as bad in the minds of the meat haters. A dairy stinks. So does a waste water treatment facility. Or an oil refinery. Diesel use creates ash. All can be shown to cause harm to those that inhale them, or drink the water contaminated by their production.
So, name your poison. But don’t try to say that second hand smoke is any worse for you than “trans-fats, sugar, raw-milk, meat” or any other product of modern society. If tobacco was so bad, it would be illegal. But the revenue to government outweighs any perceived hazard. Just try to get tobacco prohibited and see what happens…
The difference is that trans-fats, etc. only go into people who want them there, or at least, don’t care.
When you can keep your stinking smoke to yourself I’ll defend your right to smoke yourself to death, and your family along with you.
You do NOT have the right to inflict your foul habit on unwilling bystanders.
I’ve been both smoker and non-smoker and I swore when I quit that I’d NEVER turn into a nicotine-nazi!
What it is for you people is control. Control over other people. Control what they eat. Control what they wear. Control what they say. Just plain control freaks who will use any LIE to justify your control.
I despise you people and how you treat your fellow Americans.
I lived with a mother who smoked. It stinks. I makes the smoker stink, it makes the non-smoker stink. I have a couple of sisters who smoke and they are not in good health. I’ve seen way too many smoking friends die of COPD. Gasping for breath is not a way I want to live.
I’ll save my money and my health thank you.
Agree completely. My former pastor, now retired, has a bad case of COPD. The last year he barely made it through services. He had smoked for some 30 years, and retired at age FIFTY NINE, and had quit some seven years prior. He did know better, but it took a rapid deterioration in his health for him to quit finally, and surely regrets it now. BTW, there was no prior history of lung related illness in his family tree, either.
I smoke and if it offends you TO BAD! Ive been fighting you nazi rabid anti-smokers for 6 years and I wont quit til your agenda is burned and buried like hitler the last anti-smoking nazi who coined the phrase ” Passervachen/passive smoking. You anti-smoking nazis have borrowed your entire agenda from them since the very beginning. Your second hand smoke tripe is but fiction and mythology building and you know it yet you use it to destroy the credibility of science and health. Even the direct smoking claims remain UNPROVEN,yet you still claim it causes with no actual proof to even back that up!
Not 1 Death or Sickness Etiologically Assigned to Tobacco. All the diseases attributed to smoking are also present in non smokers. It means, in other words, that they are multifactorial, that is, the result of the interaction of tens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of factors, either known or suspected contributors – of which smoking can be one.
ANTI-SMOKING is the largest junk science expedition ever created in the world and now its alcohol and sugar…….whats next outlawing the obese from being seen in public………go to hell I say
And no one “dies” from AIDS either…
No – people don’t die of aides anymore. Not with that cocktail they’ve invented.
I’m more offended by your spelling than your smoking.
Ah, a Harley rider. You smoke for the same reason you ride a Harley – you want to look “cool”.
You don’t.
But I don’t care if you smoke, as long as you keep it to yourself.
You probably suffer more damage inhaling exhaust fumes than someones smoke. Get over yourself.
I smoked, but quit back in the Seventies – my voice wasn’t doing too well, and my employment included a lot of talking. But even back then, I was ragingly annoyed at the Moral Superiority of those who would tell us what to do, and more importantly, not to do, about tobacco.
Even today, I’d rather be in the presence of a smoker than an anti-smoker.
The histrionics of anti-smokers does tick me off. I love pointing out to them that worse than sugar, fat, cholesterol, smoke, and salt is…..sanctimony.
“Of course, many people consider smoking not as an ethical lapse or a spiritual transgression but merely as a function of nerves. We must, after all, do something with our hands.”
I always thought smoking was something you did to kill time before a date. But we all know that smoking isn’t good for your health. As far back as the 1930s and 1940s, people knew that smoking would eventually kill you. People back then used to call cigarettes “Nails,” for “Nails in your coffin.” So we’ve known for a long time now that smoking really isn’t good for you.
So I think that it’s about time that we bring back that habit that was made famous by Humphrey Bogart in the movie “The Caine Mutiny.” We should all start rolling around two or three marbles or ball bearings in our hand at any given time, especially when we are nervous. Sounds wierd, but it seemed to work for Bogart in the movie. True, Bogart’s character was almost insane, but hey, at least he felt better having those ball bearings around. And holding those ball bearings sure beats getting lung cancer. Then again, you could just not smoke because it’s good for you and you will live longer if you don’t do it. Just a thought.
Rolling marbles or ball bearings around in your hand is very similar to a habit I’ve heard about practiced by people in the Middle East. They hold a string of beads – sometimes called “worry beads” – and manipulate them. Apparently it is effective in calming their nerves.
There’s not much about the Middle East that would seen to be worth imitating but this may be one of the exceptions….
I like to fidget. As long as it doesn’t make a disturbing noise, this works for me…
They also like the hookah…
This article is spot on. I quit three years and thirty-five pounds ago. I smoked cigars and they are hard to quit, they taste soooooooo good. I also write and since I’ve quit I have a much more difficult time writing than I did when I could lite up a big Cohiba and watch the smoke, twiddle the cigar around, and think.
I’ll always be a tobacco addict.
Our dog-eating president smokes, right?
Smoking is perhaps harmful to the individual, but so are a lot of other things. Consider this fact: The rate of obesity here in the US has gone way up from where it was half a century ago. At the age I am (73) I can tell you that while the great majority of adults smoked, obesity of the sort we see now was rare. Yes, smoking likely does shorten the life span. On the other hand we have far more people living in nursing homes on Medicaid than there were back half a century ago. Which is really a poor way to spend your last years!
I have no desire whatever to tell other people how to live their lives. If people want to practice a self-destructive habit like smoking, that’s their business and their right, at least as long as they are adults. I’m not sure I’d defend the right of a child to smoke if that’s what they wanted.
If smoking affected only the smoker, that would be the end of it as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, smoking affects the people in the vicinity of the smoker too.
I see multiple comments here from people who claim that second-hand smoke carries no health risks and that all assertions to the contrary are bogus. I don’t know about that but I notice that no one has offered a shred of evidence in support of that thesis. If second-hand smoke is not a health risk, I have to imagine that there are valid scientific studies that prove it and that they could be cited.
However, even if second-hand smoke is absolutely harmless in the sense of causing diseases, I do know that cigarette smoke is hugely unpleasant to me. I do NOT appreciate stinking like an ashtray, which is how I inevitably used to smell whenever I went somewhere that people were smoking. I do not recognize the right of smokers to make me stink like that just as they would justifiably resent any behavior from me that made them smell terrible.
The last twenty years, which have seen the advent of more and more restrictions on where people can smoke, have been wonderful for me. I can’t remember the last time I stank like an ashtray.
Bottom line: if you smokers can prove incontrivertibly that second-hand smoke is harmless AND devise a cigarette whose smoke doesn’t stink, then I would have no problems with you smoking 20 packs a day whenever and wherever you like. But as long as the dangers of second-hand smoke have not been comprehensively refuted by scientific evidence and cigarettes smell as awful as they do, I’m going to continue to support laws that limit smoking. We all have to draw the line somewhere and that’s where I’m drawing mine.
What is the saying, “Your rights end where mine begin.”
My mother had a heart attack some 8 years ago. She had quit smoking shortly before that. But her decades of smoking was a definite contributer to her heart disease. Now, anytime she is around smoke it hurts her chest, her heart. Sometimes it leaves her sick for the next few days.
I may not have proof that second hand smoke can “kill”, but it is a lie to say or imply that it is “harmless”.
I know some will dismiss my point because my “evidence” is . But I am certain it is reproducible even if I see no reason I would ever do that to my mother.
Meant to say:
I know some will dismiss my point because my “evidence” is anecdotal. But I am certain it is reproducible even if I see no reason I would ever do that to my mother.
As the atheists like to say, “you can’t prove a negative.” It’s up to you to prove that it DOES cause the harm you claim it does. So far we have the same kind of jinned up science that they use for global warming from the same people that said eggs, milk and butter were bad for us. Well they DID say that, now they say they’re good for us. I guess it just depends on who pays for the study, doesn’t it?
“I see multiple comments here from people who claim that second-hand smoke carries no health risks and that all assertions to the contrary are bogus. I don’t know about that but I notice that no one has offered a shred of evidence in support of that thesis. If second-hand smoke is not a health risk, I have to imagine that there are valid scientific studies that prove it and that they could be cited.”
You know, just because you’ve never heard of something doesn’t mean it does not exist. Anyway, everytime you try to point out evidence to someone who insists “there’s no evidence”, they just go on to discount your evidence, whatever it is or however well-documented. My point is, such studies do exist but are routinely buried. Here’s couple quotes for you.
******
Dr Ken Denson was head of the Thame Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Centre in Oxfordshire, and a rare and inspiring objector to what he called the antismoking ‘witch hunt’. He devoted ten years to researching smoking, and published several medical journal articles eloquently arguing that the evidence, if looked at impartially and in total, was equivocal. He had unearthed countless studies showing that changes in diet could offset any risks, that moderate smokers who exercised had less disease than nonsmokers, and so on, and simply wanted to know why such studies were ignored while anything appearing to show the slightest risk was trumpeted from the rooftops.
and this:
The studies which show risk from ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or “Secondhand Smoke”) are not even the best ones. The biggest and most scientifically credible studies to date are the 10-year European one by the World Health Organisation (published in 1998) and the 39-year Californian one by Profs. Enstrom and Kabat (published by the British Medical Journal in 2003). Both failed to find any real danger from ETS (to be more precise: the WHO admitted its results were not statistically significant, then buried them and stopped talking about them; Enstrom and Kabat concluded that some risk from ETS could not be ruled out but was essentially too small to measure
The World Health Organisation now insists that ‘ETS kills’ even though its own major study proved that it doesn’t. This is a classic example of not letting the facts get in the way of an agenda.
***************
Those are just two excerpts from the following site:
http://www.joejackson.com/pdf/5smokingpdf_jj_smoke_lies.pdf
Lots of other studies cited there that you’ve never heard of before, too. For instance, how the California study used to justify smoking bans in California was thrown out in federal court because it was so egregiously flawed. You won’t look into this because, like all anti-smokers, you’ve been sold a bill of goods and your mind is made up.
Some of the smokers here might find it interesting though.
Smoking doesn’t kill you, life kills you.
Point to ONE person who has not died and who will never die, simply because they didn’t smoke. Or didn’t eat butter. Or didn’t touch alcohol. Or didn’t use salt. Or didn’t … fill in Michelle and the medical community’s fad of the moment.
The great big myth of the medical industry is that if you just do everything “right,” precisely as they dictate this year/month/week/day (subject to momentary change of course) well then you’ll live … forever? Nope. Longer? Not necessarily. More happily? Nope. More productively? Nope.
The death statistics are a crock. Medicine, insurance and government all know it, and want it that way. Did you ever smoke? Well then, when you die at 93 years of age, you will have died not of old age but because you smoked … 50 years ago. Smoking, we’re told, is so harmful and destructive decades of healthy living can’t undo it’s horrific effects.
This of course can’t explain why French woman and lifelong smoker Jeanne Calment lived to be 121 years old.
Life is a fatal endeavor. Like everything else, the need to squash smoking is about power and control. Nothing more, nothing less.
And revenue – don’t forget the tax revenue! That’s the main reason turning smokers into pyrrha’s was so successful. Scare the public (who were mostly smokers) and use a public relations attack the like has never been seen before to make it – what? Ok to outlaw cigarettes/tobacco? NO! To make it OK to TAX the cr@p out of it.
You basically see the same process with big mean old dirty oil companies and the taxes levied against them. The products themselves are relatively cheap – the taxes make them almost out of reach to most people.
GDI,
“Smoking doesn’t kill you, life kills you.”
Written like any other addict who refuses to acknowledge the Truth because their addiction is more important to them than life is–whether it be their own, or anyone else’s. It’s the nature of the gorilla on your back, buddy. It’s killing you, but you don’t CARE!
when i die i certainly do not want to be healthy
I’ve watched sick people die. I’ve watched healthy people die (from old age).
There is a huge difference between the two, and I’ll leave you to guess which is usually horrific and which is usually peaceful.
Hogwash! People who never smoked a day in their life get cancer. People – CHILDREN – who’ve never done anything harmful to their health at all contract diseases. To sit there smugly and think you’ll die a painless old age death because you don’t smoke is just blind.
A week ago I was crossing a parking lot crosswalk into a grocery store with one of my sons while an elderly gentleman with his walker was close behind us. Suddenly a huge car came right at us. I yelled, “Slow down! People are in the crosswalk!”to which the “lady” driver replied, “F*ck you, you B*TCH!”
I was so awestruck that all I could get out was, “Don’t be rude!”
To that, a woman sitting maybe 5 to 10 feet away said, “Some people are so rude these days! They just don’t care.”
Though I appreciated the moral support, the irony of her own behavior at the time did not escape me. She was seated on a bench near the store entrance smoking a long, stinky cigarette. And with the way the entrance is designed, there literally was no way to get around the smoke. We all smelled like we had just left the bar when we got past her!
My point, I do not know. I just felt like sharing.
I no longer smoke and I absolutely support of-age people’s ability to smoke as it is a legal substance. But keep it to yourself. Non-smokers do not want to “smoke” and rude smokers make life hard for all of the nice ones and those who just don’t smoke.
She wasn’t being rude. She was merely following the rules that you, the public, placed on her.
Actually, the “smoking section” equipped with full-on table & chairs was (is) some 20 feet away… *not* in front of the door.
No one *made* her smoke there, in the front entrance. She chose that. She *chose* to sit on a bench near the entrance that happened to be for sale to smoke her coffin-nail rather than walk the whole 20 feet or so to smoke it elsewhere. It was a selfish act. Period. And one I never did in my nearly 20 years of smoking.
And the “rule” belonged to the grocery store, not just the city.
The point is, people are very trashy nowadays, smokers included.
Also, don’t forget that smokers tend to throw their butts on the ground. Before cities started to ban smoking on the beach here in Southern California, the sand would be filled with cigarette butts.
Smokers may or may not have a right to smoke. but they certainly do not possess the right to force others to inhale clouds of toxic foul-smelling smoke, leave their trash on the ground, or do be accommodated by everybody. This is why a near-total ban on smoking outside the home would probably pass muster in the courts.
I work with the public. In the cabinet behind my computer, I keep a bottle of air freshener handy because some smokers stink so badly that I become nauseous. One of my employer’s competitors actually bans smoking on breaks and meal periods. Smokers simply don’t understand why it is such a disgusting and offensive habit. Hell, tobacco doesn’t even get you drunk or high! What good is that?
I don’t approve of littering, but I still submit that you get more harm from inhaling lungfuls of exhaust than you do from an occassional cloud of tobacco.
I ust want you people to please remember the stripping of liberty from your fellow citizens today that you find so acceptible will be aimed at you one day and smokers are going to tell you to p!ss off.
I’m a non-smoker.
Its been my experience that (cigarette) smokers get edgy and agitated
when circumstances prevent them from smoking, and they become unreliable.
They will leave an assignment, or do it poorly, in order to feed the nicotine addiction.
Whether someone is, or is not, a regular smoker has influenced my decision making
more than a few times when the states were high.
I make no appolgy for this prejudice.
I also cant stand cigarette smoke while I’m eating.
BUT, if its posted at the door that the restarant is a “smoking” esblishment,
then I take my chances (and not complain) or I go elsewhere. Simple solution.
ASLO, if I’m out in the park, theres plenty of air space to accomodate me AND the smokers.
I wouldnt sit on a bench next to an already smoking person and ask them to put it out…similarly, if you sit next to me, then light up, I expect to be able to politely ask “would you mind…” without a fight.
But the level of Orwellian Government intervention is disgusting.
Forcing a company to fund “anti-my-own-product” services, is terrifying to me. Outright theft, robbery, and unconstitutional confiscation of profits “at out discretion” whenever the whim hits us, “because everyone knows you suck and freaking deserve it” is an utterly terrifying precident.
The message is clear : “we will do whatever we want to those politically unpopular” and the American People, in their greed and ignorance, went along with it, so long as there were promises of “free money” from the “tobacco settlement”.
Hey, come to think of it, wasnt THAT supossed to “fix” the “health care crisis”, way back in Clintons day?
Gee, what happened?
Yeah, I’m a non smoker.
But I’m REAL careful about what I think “the government” should do about it.
….Yeah, I’m a non smoker. But I’m REAL careful about what I think “the government” should do about it.
Exactly. While I don’t enjoy second-hand smoke, I think the far bigger evil is using government coercion in this issue.
And as for political correctness, it’s brainwashing, pure and simple.
Great post. Simple courtesy is all that is called for in most situations. Snarling anti-smoking crusaders on soapboxes are as discourteous as any unaware smoker, and even more annoying.
This is a case of the pendulum swinging the other way. I remember flying on airliners so smokey I was literally gagging. I’ve walked out of restaurants where the food tasted like nothing except the smoke, and had to shower and wash my clothes after parties that made my hair and clothes reek of cigarette smoke.
Now we are going too far the other way. While it’s hard for me to pity the poor smoker, it would be healthier for all if we just got to the happy-medium and stayed there. I don’t care if bars and restaurants allow smoking – they just won’t get my business.
Somewhat infamous story from a few years ago when an English MOP was going on about how many thousands were dying from second hand smoke every year. An opposition member stood up and demanded a simple answer: “Name one”. Crickets…. We could rest easy on future demands for Social Security if second hand smoke was a relentless killer, because a majority of baby boomers grew up in households in which at least one parent smoked. We should all be going down like flies at this point. It is kind of weird that “society” should keep telling us to bend over backwards for a great variety of 2%’s in the name of political correctness, but finds no problem with aggressively discriminating against 20% of the population. I would suggest that one smoke cigars however. 0ne, you don’t inhale, and, two, you would be helping an assortment of third world countries with their economies. Now, if that old bastard Fidel would kick off……
No correlation between health and morality? There *is* a reason “gluttony” is one of the Seven Deadlies. And “gluttony” needn’t be about food; gluttony is the exaltation of any physical appetite to the point where its self-destructive excess is defended as a principle of pride.
Which is not to say a number of ex-smokers couldn’t stand to dispense with the lectures, nor anti-smokers to dispense with their smug superiority (you can be a glutton about your healthy choices, too). But if you refuse to give up a vice despite knowing how repugnant and offensive it is to those around you, and take no pains to spare them that revulsion, do not expect your dedication to the principle of freedom to outweigh your disdain of being charitable towards others in the Judgement.
I never touched a cigarette until I was 33 years old. I tried my first one then and absolutely loved it. It was a menthol superslim cigarette and after one puff, the stress and tension in my body instantly left. I now smoke two of them per day, and only after dinner. I do not feel the desire to smoke during the day,it is strictly at night and after my meal.It is one of my few pleasures and a very relaxing way to end the day.
I smoke cigars, once in Key West, unlit cigar in hand I approached the entrance gate to a small ¨Boutique Hotel¨ with my wife, out he door rushed a guy, feathers flying, telling me, very loudly, CAN´T BRING THAT THING in here (Wife, Cigar ?).
I looked at the unlit cigar, looked at him, and asked him if he was gay, he said YES, WHAT ABOUT IT ?
I replied, And you are worried about an unlit cigar, but not about your life style killing you, uhm !
By the way I am 67 and never been sick a day in my life….
I guess that ¨Cure Aids Now¨, on my dime, has more power that ¨Avoid AIDS Now¨, just comparing.
Smoking is bad for your health. Working in a cubicle is bad for your health. Being unhappy is bad for your health. Being compelled to do what you don’t want to do is bad for your health. Not loving, and not being loved, is bad for your health. Making yourself fit into a societally-approved way of feeling, thinking, living is bad for your health. Pollution is bad for your health. Being a father (nowadays) is bad for your health. Taking pharmaceuticals is bad for your health. Unexpressed rage is bad for your health. Expressing rage is bad for your health. It will soon be revealed that reading on computers is bad for your health. Being a victim or a victimizer is bad for your health. Pretty much EVERYTHING is bad for your health. In the end, LIFE is bad for your health, because you’re gonna die of something. The great Eubie Blake, who died at 100, and who lived basically on girls, chocolate and cigarettes, said that if he’d known he was going to live so long, he have taken better care of himself. Amen.
French people smoke like fiends and until recently smoking was allowed everywhere. They also have what Americans would call a deadly diet of fats. For some reason they also live longer lives than most nations.
A question comes to mind…
Is eating dog good for your health ?
Only if the dog is properly smoked.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
It’s obvious, Mr. Solway, that you’re a smoker.
And, as a smoker, you seem intent on forgetting all the negative health aspects of tobacco, and its smoke, upon everyone; including yourself. This is a clear indication of the core problem behind addictive personality: Selfishness.
In a free society, such as ours, everyone has the right to pursue their most selfish desires–so long as obtaining those desires does not infringe upon anyone else’s rights (including their God-Given Right to LIFE). Now, considering that tobacco is a carcinogen–and its smoke just as cancer-causing as the product itself–you have every right to engage in your dirty addiction ONLY when you ensure that no one else is forced to inhale your product’s unhealthy smoke. May I remind you that your freedom only extends as far as the tip of your OWN nose!
So, please limit your unhealthy habit to a closed-in room or building that is hermetically sealed and not inhabited by any other forms of life. Then, you can smoke to your heart’s content. No one cares if you choose to give yourself cancer. We only care when you insist upon infesting the rest of us.
Nice comment Catherine B but, if I walk into a restaurant that doesn’t allow smoking, I don’t smoke or I go elsewhere. If a non-smoker walks into a place that allows smoking they scream bloody murder and demand everyone else quit smoking. When this first started we got herded into a little fenced off area, and then later we were not welcome in a place we had been frequenting for years. All because somebody got their knickers in a twist and thought the smoke caused it. If the smoke bothered them so much why didn’t they go somewhere else? Heck, they could even open their own place for that matter and invite all their non-smoking friends to go there. To suggest that though would get you accused of violating their liberty. Yeah, right, that’s fair! NOT!
Perry1949, there’s definitely some truth to your argument.
The first laws to limit smoking did tend to happen as a result of aggressive actions by rabid anti-smokers.
I respect the fact that you, as a smoker, would simply not smoke or patronize a different establishment if you wanted to smoke. That is fair and reasonable. But telling non-smokers that they should do the same isn’t very realistic, or at least it wasn’t then. Nowadays, sure there are plenty of places that limit smoking or prohibit it altogether but back when the anti-smoking activists got started, there were NO non-smoking places at all, unless you count standing outside. Bars or restaurants that prohibited smoking weren’t just rare in those days, they were non-existent.
In those days, you could speak to any business owner and suggest that they just ban smoking in their establisment but they’d inevitably raise concerns about alienating smokers and losing valuable business. Instead, they opted to allow smoking and assume that non-smokers would simply endure the smoke. And that’s largely what happened.
As for starting a non-smoking bar or restaurant (or other business) yourself, that was always an option but it certainly wasn’t a very practical one for most people. They had other jobs and simply weren’t going to throw them away so that they could start a business that catered only to non-smokers.
Nowadays, we have lots of non-smoking businesses and it might make a lot of sense to repeal a lot of the anti-smoking legislation on the grounds that non-smoking businesses exist but there were precious few in the early 90s when the anti-smoking activists started getting serious.
An entrepreneur would have solved the “problem” by opening an establichment catering to non-smokers. Non-smokers (backed by a government who saw the deep pockets of tobacco companies) simply decided that it had to be banned everywhere. In my town we had both smoking and non-smoking bars and restaurants which catered to everybody’s wants and needs. What did the city do (not by vote either)? Passed a non-smoking bill. Most of that area is dead now. The businesses on one street the next town over COMPLETELY closed down. Never rcovered.
This was in California.
I’m 62, I’ve been smoking 50 years, I’m in good health. As to the “nails” allegory, if that held true they would need a crane to get my coffin in the ground. In my 62 years I’ve seen things suddenly become bad for you and then later good for you. Always someone with the “you’re gonna kill yourself doing that!” So, if I quit smoking I add what? Maybe two or three years to my life expectancy? Would I enjoy those extra years or would I be just as happy giving up something in the future for something I enjoy now? I could stop smoking now and step off the curb into the path of a car I didn’t see. Would I be any healthier when I died? Life is a rigged game. No matter what you do, you are going to lose. If someone is diagnosed with cancer and is a smoker then, of course it must have been the smoking that caused it. If you don’t smoke then maybe it was the second hand smoke that got you. Or it could have been your diet, or that extra salt you poured on your greasy hamburger and fries. Oh, wait, it might have been something in the water you drank or maybe something in the air.
They call it the practice of medicine for a reason. It’s their way of getting around the fact that they really don’t know but gee, let’s try it anyway. I liked George Burns’ attitude, he just outlived any doctors that told him to quit smoking.
Smokers, in general, seem to me to be more approachable, less judgmental, more open than average. I’ve wondered if it’s because they have a touch of humility…after all, their failing (habit) is out there for all to see (or smell).
The fitness/diet and rabid anti-smokers fanatics I know, on the other hand, seem to be (generally) more shallow, prideful, selfish, and judgmental than average. Makes me wonder why they’d want to extend such an existence…or if it’s just their way of delaying the day they meet their maker; you know, the one who discerns the true content of the heart (rather than the lungs).
When one of the health fanatics died not so long ago, while others exclaimed how ‘he did everything right…’ I was left recalling what (aside from the diet/exercise routine) what a despicable person he was, regarding treatment of others, greed, lying, cruelly, etc.
Off topic but…
Whenever I see a health nut or (relatively) famous athelete die at a young age from a heart attack,
I shout “ah-HA!
“See? Your heart is GENETICALLY PROGRAMED to beat X-NUMBER OF TIMES…
and you used them up on the treadmill!”
So put the salt, butter and Trans fats back in my food…
I’ll decide how much is bad for me, Mr. (or Mrs.) Healthy and DEAD.
A few years ago, Mars Chocolate company put out a set of ads that said that a well timed Twix bar will do everything mentioned in this article.
Everybody chooses their on poison.
At lunchtime at a park across the street from the office, I spied cool 11-13-year-olds on a bench, lighting up their ciggies. My urge was to run over, exploding with “Thank you, thank you, thank you — NEVER QUIT! — Without you I would not have so much overtime and so much job security! And the Social Security Trust Fund will continue!”
But then I did not think they would understand. After lunch I returned to my job of Federal review of state agency disability decisions. One learns a lot in the thousands of medical files.
So YOU’RE the one that stamps approval for all those disability frauds who’ve never worked a day in their life because of some faux headache or chronic fatigue syndrome!
At the start of the second hand smoke debate, I had started college. I decided to do my own study of sorts for my paper at WSU.
What better way to view the effects of second hand smoke but to use the unwilling Guinea Pigs in most of these homes, the pets.
Going by memory, I went to 4 Veterinary Clinics in my area. They were also interested in the outcome so they agreed. We spoke with the clients and had their approval.
This was a 5 year study. All reasons for pets visit was documented.
Rules of the study: 1)Must had pet since first released from Mother. 2)Must be a smoker 3)Pet must remain in home during study (exception for medical or vacations)4)Pet must receive standard medical care as stated by the AVMA.
Any pet was allowed. We ended up with 85 “test subjects”. 60 dogs (large and small breeds mean age 7 years) 20 Cats(over and under 14 pounds mean age 5 years),3 Birds, 1 Hamster, 1 Guinea Pig. I made sure to get small rodents and birds who are respiratory sensitive especially.
While all of us expected to see high respiratory issues and cancers, quite the opposite was true. One bird was treated for a respiratory issue. We reviewed past histories as well and found only 2 dogs and 1 cat had any type of respiratory issues. These were from breed specific issues and one food allergy. We lost one dog who was hit by a car.
We found this study so interesting even the Vets continued to follow these pets to death.
It turns out, only 1 died from pulmonary disease. This was a large breed dog who lived to be 12 years. (somewhat norm for a large breed)The necropsy found Blastomycosis.
This study only proved that second hand smoke does not do the damage they wish you to believe. The original smoker is the one who filters the chemicals that cause the damage. It wasn’t until the government decided these chemicals had to be put in cigarettes the problems began. History proves this.
I’ll continue to smoke my natural tobacco, you keep believing the lies. You allow the government to control your every move, I’ll continue controlling mine.
The most interesting part of this entire study was the dogs the Vets DID see with lung cancer was from NON smoking homes. Hum, quite interesting indeed.
Excellent post! I don’t smoke anymore but have thought many times about lighting up just because of the idiocy of the anti-smoking crowd. I love the screeching comments on this article by the anti-smokers who just cannot deal with those who choose to smoke. I had a wonderful moment the other day on a street corner in downtown Chicago. A woman about 30 was standing waiting for the light to change as a bus sat idling in front of her, small bursts of grey smoke was being pumped from its exhaust pipe. A man with a cigarette stood a few feet from the woman enveloped in the bus exhaust. When she noticed his cigarette she rolled her eyes and began frantically waving her hand in front of her nose, grimacing with annoyance. The bus exhaust was fine, but just the presence of a lit cigarette almost caused the woman to convulse. She displayed her idiocy for all to see and it was quite entertaining. At that moment I really wanted a cigarette.
LOL! You sound like you and I share the same character flaw – the “in-your-face-ism” trait. It’s funny that when I lived in a state that went completely NAZI with smoking – I smoked. But when I moved to a state that didn’t care – I quit.
I also totally agree that these non-smokers probably get more health risks from inhaling exhaust than someone’s second hand smoke. Smoke they’ve already purified with their own lungs.
That’s easy. People start smoking for image. They want to “fit in”, to look “cool” (rhymes with FOOL), to look “adult”. In other words, they are weaklings.
Why they CONTINUE is more complicated, but the original reasons for STARTING always remain as at least PART of the reason for continuing.
Of course, when put this simply, it makes smokers look bad, so the angry denials are immediate and vociferous.
It’s still true.
marky- you seem very concerned with the “image” people project, be it the Harley -riding biker, or the people who started smoking to look “cool”. Sounds like you have a selfimage problem. . . . maybe wanted to fit in with the “in” crowd, or be a rebel, but you didn’t have the stones to pull it off, and remained the geek on the edge of the crowd? Now you have a lot of hostility to toward those who choose not to be part of the PC crowd, which seems to be the group you have managed to join.Grow up, man!
Rightists are in favor of smoking cigarettes but opposed to smoking marijuana. Leftists are in favor of smoking marijuana but opposed to smoking cigarettes.
Smoke stinks. The left stinks. The right stinks.
The right is against smoking pot because it’s illegal. Plus it’s been so genetically enhanced that it actually causes brain damage to teenagers whose brains haven’t finished developing.
If it was weaker or labelled like hooch, (i.e. beer vs whiskey) and made age appropriate like alcohol most conservatives don’t have a problem with it. But it has to be regulated like alcohol.
” A woman is only a woman,
But a good cigar is a Smoke!”
Rudyard Kipling
Don’t forget how the current anti-smoking jihad began: It started in 1993 as a Clinton administration vehicle to allow the trial lawyers who supported him to loot Big Tobacco under the auspices that they had been “lying” about their product. The EPA got into the act producing a finding that second hand smoke was a carcinogen. But the way they did it was by loosening the statistical rules on their study of studies to the point where they were able to demonstrate correlation. Of course by that point, the sun coming up in the morning also correlated statistically. The EPA finding was thrown out by a federal judge several years later because it did not meet the accepted standards of scientific analysis.
But by that point, the class action lawsuits against the tobacco manufacturers were providing such a tidal wave of free money into democrat campaign coffers that there was no way to ever stop them. Part of the settlements in every state was tobacco money to various non-profits attached leech-like to the body politic to produce anti-smoking propaganda. After 20 years, it appears that propaganda has worked well.
I am happy the kids (who will always rebel) are starting to rebel by starting to smoke again.
Used to be that cigar smoking correlated with good health, as those that partook were middle to upper class here in the US. That data has also been buried as the FDA prepares to go after cigars and pipe tobaccco.
The problem with all of this, is that smoking was always thought to be damaging. That is why cigarettes have been called ‘coffin nails” for over a century here in the US – pun very old and very intentional, I believe. I remember as a kid a MGM Porky Pig cartoon circa 1932 or so that had him forced to smoke LOTS of cigarettes as an object lesson not to start. 80 years enough to know they were dangerous?
We Americans used to be free enough to do dangerous things. Today, with the Nanny State, few dangerous (and pleasurable) things remain. I think there is a impulse we have as Americans for prohibition and control over the lives of our neighbors. Alcohol was the first big one. Tobacco was 20 years ago. Today it is food. The solution to all of it is simple liberty – something that the Tobacco Nazis recoil when faced with like a vampire with holy water or garlic. Cheers -
And so exactly how are the health programs that were to be funded by taxes on cigarettes to be funded if all stop smoking????????????????????
and why is the government in bed with a product that they KNOW is harmful, to fund programs????????????????
And really we should be thanking the smokers for the taxes that they pay.
But this is a liberal program based on feel good, touchy feely, with no sense or reality, or based in any logic.
As an ex-smoker who cannot, and never could tell you how many days it has been since I smoked. I quit because I was a two pack a day smoker who was starting to experience some health problems. That and because Bill and Hill were threating to use tobacco taxes to fund health care for the poor. I avoid “helping” the poor like the plague.
When I quit, my wife continued to smoke. I was the one who quit. Why would I expect her to do the same. We are both adults. She quit a few years later of her own accord. Not because I preached at her.
Somehow a whiff of cigarette smoke, or any tobacco smoke for that matter, turned into the equivelant of Zykon B.
I guess that anti-smokers can’t just accept that some people just enjoy smoking. I think they major more in drama than health. The “second hand” smoke finding was more of a piece of political theater than a serious study and everyone knows it. But they just can’t grasp that the world does not revolve around them and insist that everyone should act according to their little hobbyhorses.
My advice to them is that they should get over themselves.
Whatever we think about smoking or smokers it remains in a free country a matter of personal choice. Per
sonal choice protected as such in law in the USA while still a free country. Remember life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Until do-gooders took control of the social machinery in the 20th century.
When did Americans become the nursery infants of these go-gooders to allow themselves to be corralled into whatever pens directed by these self-appointed shepherds? WHY did Americans permit themselves to be so corralled.
The shepherds use as their “bible” their Science. I say their science because in some instances it is not science as scientists know it. I refer of course to the interpretation on their own data about climate change from interested “scientists”. Scientists with it seems their politics taking precedence over their science. Might we suppose those concerned about smoking also have political axe? WHAT exactly do their statistics tell us about smoking? Are those statistics accepted as valid throughtout the working scientifice milieu? We know enough now about these do-gooders to know that much of what they tell us is hardly credible.
In their concern for who do or might do injury to themselves and others notice now selective they are. And to assure their benevolence contrive punitive laws to their directives. Laws which in reading of the Rights of Americans to their personal decisions/choices in the Constitution on which ALL laws in the USA are justitied. their laws against smoking are unlawful. America also known as a “Country of Law”. Not of lawyers.
That smoking is an unpleasant habit for the publc, in the smells, the butts, and the fugging of the air is not the point. That it is costly for smokers is not the point.That non-smoking has made public places more comfortable is not the point. The point is that Americans do not reqire, ARE NOT required as Americans to buckle to dictates from strangers “concerned” about them and their “health”. THE Health of Americans resides in the Constitution which protects their RIGHTS spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. Americans do not need corraling as sheep or nursery infants for their own or the greater good. Why have they readily surrendered their freedoms for personal decision to complete strangers.
Without taking any sides on the matter, the NBC networks (at least on cable CNBC and NBCSports) are showing the government’s anti-smoking commercials, totally in line with what this administration is gunning for. These are the ones with the folks who have had tracheotomies and other smoking related diseases. So while NBC is airing more NHL playoff games (the only reason why I watch NBC), it comes with a nasty price tag for the casual viewer.
#4 reply by lolly: “What it is for you people is control. Control over other people…..” Funny, that’s my thinking about the groups that oppose abortion and birth control.
#34 John D.: “I guess that anti-smokers can’t just accept that some people just enjoy smoking…..” I don’t have a problem with people smoking. But their right to smoke ends at the entrance to my lungs, period. And I’m not giving up my right to be in public places because smokers need to indulge their habit in public.
Hey clodpate – do the words “it’s not illegal to smoke” mean anything to you? When arrogant metrosexuals like you find a way to have your big government outlaw cigarettes in a manner similar to cocaine or heroine – then you can bloviate about how your rights trump the rights of others. Until then, just stfu. Even YOUR president sullies the Whitehouse with tar and nicotine. You are such a hypocrite. Some of us would like a world free of self-righteous idiots whose very presence is inimical to our mental health – a world that would force people like you to stay the hell home – but that would be illegal. You have a right to be tolerated – so thank you for holding your breath while I smoke.
I for one got a good chuckle out of Mr Solway’s obviously humorous and light-hearted article. Then I got another rueful chuckle when I remembered the reference to worse habits such as political correctness as I reviewed these replies and posts. Sounds like a lot of people need a good smoke (or to get laid, or possibly both).
The amount of vitriol in some of these responses is usually reserved for Jews.
…………..oh yeah…….
Worthy of an essay of it’s own, the perfectly timed, thick writhing smoke ring is a social power tool much missed these days. It can intimidate a negotiating opponent, inspire awe in one’s peers and, depending on how aimed, eloquently express nonchalance or slap-your-face insult. Complement it with the smart-aleck’s smaller chain rings and you have a formidable non-verbal arsenal.