Originally Posted by Martin SavageView Post If you’re younger than 35 and still smoke, you don’t want to quit and still think it’s cool, you’re a moron and a deluded douchebag who will hamper the medical system with their failing health. Even worse here, as the state will pay for these fuckers. Yeah, they’ll die sooner, but they’re gonna be way more sick with lung cancers and other smoking-related diseases.
See… that’s the thing. No matter how bad for you, no matter how many good arguments against smoking there are, the message the anti-smoking people choose to pound into kid’s skulls is the one message that even a kid knows is a lie: “Smoking is not cool”. I’m sorry, but smoking IS cool. It looks awesome. If it were not cool, you’d think the anti’s would be slightly less hysterical in their proclamations to the contrary. Many things are true about smoking, and yes ,many of the health claims are true. What’s also true though is smoking looks very very cool. I think I’d be less annoyed with the D.A.R.E people if they’d just admit “Ok kids, you know what? Smoking does look cool, we’re not going to lie. However, we’re of the opinion that the health trade off is not worth it and that’s why we’d like to encourage you not to smoke”. That would be an honest message and one I’d have no problem with
If anything’s a bad habit, it’s alcohol more than cigarettes. It’s also addictive, expensive, and unlike cigarettes it can make you really fucking violent. And look how acceptable it is! Sure, being an alcoholic isn’t ‘cool’, but you should see the pitying looks I get when I say my boyfriend doesn’t drink, or if I refuse a glass of wine with a meal.
For the record, I do drink (I just don’t like wine and beer, the socially acceptable meal time drinks), and I do smoke (occasionally and socially only, I’m not addicted and haven’t had one in months). I think people’s personal habits are no one’s business but their own, and there isn’t a moral issue here, although it’s certainly not wise to put anything into your body that isn’t good for it.
Originally Posted by Brad MilletteView Post Phil, I don’t know the science behind it, so I can’t say whether nicotine addiction is particularly severe. But the fact is that part of why it’s so hard for people to quit is that it’s so fucking easy to get a pack of cigarettes. That willpower can break down so easily when a fix is just five bucks a gas station away. I know that was one of the biggest difficulties for me, passing gas stations on the way to work and having to fight that temptation to buy a pack.
Access is easy, sure. But I’m basing my observation on people who travel 25 floors to the street to stand in the freezing cold, rain, what have you, to get their fix. On people who can’t wait to get all the way out of the revolving door before lighting up. Who can barely fucking breathe and are still sucking on the things like a crack whore.
I voted for cigarettes just because I’m irate today and half of my work week just blew up in my face because other people can’t do their shit and if I didn’t give a shit I’d be smoking entire packs right now but I’m doing good and staying away since September 1st oh god
Originally Posted by CleoView Post I think people’s personal habits are no one’s business but their own
Smoking is the one nasty vice that, by its very nature, is very much other people’s business. As a non-smoker I found the thick atmosphere of nicotine that used to blanket UK drinking establishments nigh-unbearable. Thejury may still be out on the dangers of passive smoking, but if nothing else it’s just not a nice habit. At least with alcohol you get a few hours of happy fun-time - is a nicotine high really comparable?
Originally Posted by Princess KateView Post I’m sorry, but smoking IS cool. It looks awesome. If it were not cool, you’d think the anti’s would be slightly less hysterical in their proclamations to the contrary. Many things are true about smoking, and yes ,many of the health claims are true. What’s also true though is smoking looks very very cool.
Roont. Do you take all your arguments from Family Guy episodes?
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Originally Posted by CleoView Post If anything’s a bad habit, it’s alcohol more than cigarettes. It’s also addictive, expensive, and unlike cigarettes it can make you really fucking violent. And look how acceptable it is! Sure, being an alcoholic isn’t ‘cool’, but you should see the pitying looks I get when I say my boyfriend doesn’t drink, or if I refuse a glass of wine with a meal. For the record, I do drink (I just don’t like wine and beer, the socially acceptable meal time drinks), and I do smoke (occasionally and socially only, I’m not addicted and haven’t had one in months). I think people’s personal habits are no one’s business but their own, and there isn’t a moral issue here, although it’s certainly not wise to put anything into your body that isn’t good for it.
If smoking could be self contained, I would have no problem with people killing themselves with their habit. But, that’s not the case, and that’s where it differs from alcohol.
I enjoy drinking way more, I’ll admit. But I’m a happy/slutty drunk, not a violent or pukey drunk. Cigarettes have never given me the energy to dance for hours or the lack of inhibition required to lose my new dress in a club, you’re right. But they have also never made me (or anyone else) bite someone’s ear off before throwing up and passing out, all in the course of a night. That’s alcohol’s speciality.
I am glad about the smoking ban inside public buildings though - it changed when I was below the drinking age but I have been in the smoking carriage of a train before when I was much younger, and it was so thick I could barely breathe. I’m happy that people have to go outside now, and I don’t mind going out for a smoke at all.
Originally Posted by lordelseyView Post every time I see one of those Truth commericals…I want to buy a pack. Just like MADD stuff.
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Originally Posted by BuchoView Post I feel you man, when Supersize Me came out every time I heard the dude inteviewed I was itching for some Maccas.
I don’t understand this. It’s like, I hate people telling me what to do…so I’m going to eat and smoke some really unhealthy shit and put my health at risk. That’ll show them?
And sure smoking looks cool, if you’re Humphrey fucking Bogart. Otherwise, you’re just another dork showing off to the world your ability to make dumb choices.
Originally Posted by CleoView Post If anything’s a bad habit, it’s alcohol more than cigarettes. It’s also addictive, expensive, and unlike cigarettes it can make you really fucking violent. And look how acceptable it is! Sure, being an alcoholic isn’t ‘cool’, but you should see the pitying looks I get when I say my boyfriend doesn’t drink, or if I refuse a glass of wine with a meal. For the record, I do drink (I just don’t like wine and beer, the socially acceptable meal time drinks), and I do smoke (occasionally and socially only, I’m not addicted and haven’t had one in months). I think people’s personal habits are no one’s business but their own, and there isn’t a moral issue here, although it’s certainly not wise to put anything into your body that isn’t good for it.
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Originally Posted by CleoView Post If anything’s a bad habit, it’s alcohol more than cigarettes. It’s also addictive, expensive, and unlike cigarettes it can make you really fucking violent. And look how acceptable it is! Sure, being an alcoholic isn’t ‘cool’, but you should see the pitying looks I get when I say my boyfriend doesn’t drink, or if I refuse a glass of wine with a meal. For the record, I do drink (I just don’t like wine and beer, the socially acceptable meal time drinks), and I do smoke (occasionally and socially only, I’m not addicted and haven’t had one in months). I think people’s personal habits are no one’s business but their own, and there isn’t a moral issue here, although it’s certainly not wise to put anything into your body that isn’t good for it.
Cleo,
I agree completely about alcohol. I find it disgusting, pretty much. It’s terrible for you, and leaves me feeling brittle and sick to my stomach the next day. I guess that’s what my frustration with all the anti-smoking stuff stems from. I feel like Americans (perhaps Britains too?) decided to get huffy about smoking so they’d feel like they actually were on top of the whole “being healthy” thing, when in reality just about everything else in the American Lifestyle that’s unhealthy goes ignored. Cancer rates have skyrocketed over the past 50 years, and that’s due to all the new chemicals we encounter, not just smoking.
I never smoked as a habit, but I ALWAYS find a way to smoke when I drink. I have no idea why, but I become Moochy McGrew for cigarettes after about 2 drinks.
Originally Posted by CleoView Post I am glad about the smoking ban inside public buildings though - it changed when I was below the drinking age but I have been in the smoking carriage of a train before when I was much younger, and it was so thick I could barely breathe. I’m happy that people have to go outside now, and I don’t mind going out for a smoke at all.
You know, I actually miss the public smoking. I remember being a child and going to movies at the local mall when the food court still had a smoking section. The smells/sounds/sights were intoxicating. Now I look back at that as some magical lost world, when you could eat Little Tokyo and light up indoors. My mom always made us sit in the non-smoking, but the place seemed so much larger when there was this whole mysterious section I was not allowed to sit in (I could smell the exotic scents wafting over as I ate my Roman Delite pizza though) . Now the place is seems smaller and more mundane
Also, I used to work in a movie theater in highschool that had a bar next doors. It was the only smoking bar in town and I remember being sad when they were forced to change. The whole atmosphere changed, eventually the bar was purchased by someone else, redecorated, and is now a hang out for local hipsters. I went in there a few months back to order a hamburger, and it took over 45 minutes before I got my food. Ugh.
Originally Posted by Anakin’s DadView Post If smoking could be self contained, I would have no problem with people killing themselves with their habit. But, that’s not the case, and that’s where it differs from alcohol.
Plenty of people get killed each year because some dumbass got behind the wheel and decided to kill innocent people. Alcohol isn’t that much different from smoking.
Originally Posted by Richard DicksonView Post Used responsibly, alcohol is not dangerous. Used responsibly, cigarettes will still kill you.
You are kidding, right? Alcohol is a poison that destroys your liver, stomach, and brain. Used “reponsibly” or not, it’s poison , not magic-happy-juice