I smoked a whole pack in like two hours at this wicked kegger at my friend's place on Saturday. I didn't smoke at all Sunday but now I still have some wacky cough. I probably caught something from one of the people there. Or my body is finally sick of me smoking. Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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:| Haven't you ever seen the black lung photos? Smoking = not good for your health, especially your lungs.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Oh lord, spare us the Saturday Afternoon Special.
What did you smoke? I hate it when someone hands me a menthol. I feel like I'm smoking Vick's VapoRub.
I generally prefer cloves, a pipe or a nice cigar. Maybe I'm just a textbook Freudian case, but I just really enjoy smoking while I party/drink.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I love menthol actually. So cool and smooth...
Cloves ROCK! Djarum Black is my favorite.
I first started smoking when 20 and in college. Just cloves at first. Then I got into the amazing and thrilling field of security...so I started smoking normal ciggs on just to help me kill time. But man... I do love to smoke. I wish you could do it without the addiction and health problems. Because it really gives you something to do at parties or in a lull in converstation. And they look so cool with a martini and my flowing black cloak.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Well, I would, but I'm so out of shape from smoking all the time that I can't fly backwards fast enough to get back to the 2nd grade. Maybe 5th grade...
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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We had a neighborhood Fagan (sp?) who trained all us little kids to steal for him and his juvenile delinquent friends. This was in the days when cigarettes were a "grab item" out by the cash registers where they keep the gum and Altoids now. A small kid could knock a pack off the bottom row, pay money for something else, and walk out with a pack of cigarettes.
Naturally, since our local hero smoked, we figured we should too.
I don't think any of us ever inhaled. The only real casualty (besides our BUTTS when our parents found out simultaneously one day) was a beautiful old oak tree behind the store that we used to climb up into so we could smoke without anyone seeing us. Sadly, we used to light one cigarette from which we would light all the others, and then stick it in a knot hole so we wouldn't waste matches.
Matches were a LOT harder to get than the cigarettes. We had to sneak into a place that had a cigarette vending machine and push the button that would dispense a pack of matches. Seriously tough work...
So, anyway, we all got caught because I was riding my bike home from a shopping trip and I saw my mom's car. Thinking quickly, I dumped the bright pack of Marlboros in the street. She wondered what had just "fallen" out of my pocket and to her surprise it was a pack of cigs.
To my credit, I didn't rat out my brother, but I think he got in trouble anyway because he was older and the whole block-wide conspiracy kind of collapsed that afternoon because my parents talked to the other parents, etc.
Oddly enough, we moved away from that neighborhood not long after.
Then I started smoking again in high school like every other American teen.
It didn't do much for my performance in track or Cross Country, but then I was hoping to be cool, you know...so it didn't matter.
anyway, I had finally kicked the habit some years later and picked it up again in honor of my divorces. Silly.
So, I finally kicked it for good a couple of years ago.
My only problem now is that I still like the smell of it and if I'm not careful I find myself wandering into the smoking rooms at major airports so I can get a year's worth of cigarette smoke in about 10 minutes.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Sad thing is, kids that live with smokers for parents often complain about their parents smoking....until they move out on their own and inexplicably start smoking themselves. Turns out they've been addicted their whole lives.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I dunno, Glenn, I grew up with a dad who smoked and had no inclination to do so when I got older.
Also, I believe there was a smoking thread on Hatrack before, for folks who like to smoke, be it cigarettes, cigars, or pipes, so that people won't give them the After School Special speeches (as PC mentioned). I think they know the dangers. They're adults, and it isn't nice to remind them over and over again what they've already heard. Repeating something over and over isn't going to make someone change their mind, especially when it isn't new information, and annoys them.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Bob, great story. Even if it is kind of sad, it has this Stand by Me ring to it that makes me wish River Phoenix hadn't died (speaking of drug use).
quote:Oh, don't even talk like that.
Since I'm on the receiving end of the post this comment references, I'd like to say, who gives a crap, Glenn? I thought it was funny. Lighten the frick up.
mack, I remember that thread. It was great until Toretha came storming in with her Gospel of the Smoke-Free. She wouldn't effing back down so the thread died.
I'd light up, but I've smoked too recently. Gotta wait another week or so.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I smoke close to 3 packs a day and can still climb a mountain (sorta)
Still, it's bad. Bad bad. The kind of bad you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Why? Because its a centerpiece (commonplace) of compulsive/addictive human behavior and simultaneously the target for social demonification.
posted
As to the comment about studies regarding smoking being so awful for you, I'd like to mention that I recently read an article that quoted a study that found obesity to be a higher cause of death and crap than smoking.
I bet I could find you a study that states that Jello is the leading cause of brain cancer amoung Koala Bears. I can find you a study that says anything. That's what's so misleading about them. You think they're real science.
Hypothesis -> Find evidence to Prove Hypothesis -> Skip everything else and head straight into SCIENTIFIC FACT.
Not good scientific method.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I was recently informed by a friend that smokers have the lowest incidence of colon cancer. One of the benefits (as I'm sure most smokers can attest to) of the nicotinic urge, is regularity.
'Course, I haven't look up those stats. Could be a bunch o crap.
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I don't smoke cigarettes, but I don't really have a problem with them, either. I agree that there should be designated areas to smoke, and if you have a problem with it...don't go there. My roommates and I smoke cigars and on any given day of the week our apartment will probably smell strongly of smoke. My car often smells like smoke. Sometimes I smell like smoke. Anyone who acts offended because MY things smell like smoke, can get away from me. I've had people start coughing loudly or make faces at me while I'm smoking, and sorry, but I think that's really rude. You are entitled to your opinions and that's great and all, but don't be rude to me because of it. I don't flip you off or key your car because you have a pro-choice sticker or something else that I disagree with. I dunno. Maybe I'm ranting, but I think people need to get their own lives and stop worrying about smokers screwing up theirs. *shrug*
Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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alluvion, I don't think that's true - my grandfather smoked a pipe for 50 years and had colon cancer and my mother smoked cigarettes and she had colon cancer. My aunt smoked for 60 years and got bladder cancer (not that that has anything to do with colon cancer, but it's another fun side-effect of smoking).
BTW, y'all, cloves are much, much worse than regular cigarettes. I had to give them up because I started coughing up blood (back when I smoked). They are only 30-40% cloves - the rest is poor-quality tobacco. Generally, the tobacco in cloves contains approximately twice as much tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide as the tobacco in regular cigarettes. The same goes for bidis.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Avadaru: I don't smoke cigarettes, but I don't really have a problem with them, either. I agree that there should be designated areas to smoke, and if you have a problem with it...don't go there. My roommates and I smoke cigars and on any given day of the week our apartment will probably smell strongly of smoke. My car often smells like smoke. Sometimes I smell like smoke. Anyone who acts offended because MY things smell like smoke, can get away from me. I've had people start coughing loudly or make faces at me while I'm smoking, and sorry, but I think that's really rude. You are entitled to your opinions and that's great and all, but don't be rude to me because of it. I don't flip you off or key your car because you have a pro-choice sticker or something else that I disagree with. I dunno. Maybe I'm ranting, but I think people need to get their own lives and stop worrying about smokers screwing up theirs. *shrug*
If I cough or make faces at smokers, it's not a political comment. It's not even really about them. Cigarette smoke (and even worse, cigar and pipe smoke) makes me physically ill. It triggers my respiratory allergies something awful -- which means I can expect symptoms that last days or weeks, depending on degree of exposure -- as well as nausea bad enough that it has caused vomiting on more than one occasion (when I was unable to get away from the smoker, and they refused to stop).
Thank goodness for non-smoking planes, trains, restaurants, etc!
Smoke all you want -- AWAY from me!
But anyone who smokes will REEK of the smoke for hours afterwards, and that reek is physically difficult for me to be around.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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And I won't smoke near you, rivka. I personally find the people that smoke in the halls of my building (in spring and summer even!) to be incredibly offensive. I smoke outside as a courtesy, I expect the same of everyone else.
But Lord does my car smell sexy. It has this manly, earthy smell that only smoking occasionally and having its primary driver be male can offer.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I'm with rivka; smoking is both an allergy and an asthma trigger for me. I have had things much worse since I moved away from CA, where it's considered (in most parts) rude to smoke in public and is illegal in work- and gathering-places, to smoking country, where anti-smoking laws are new, not always enforced, and city-by-city. I've been in the hospital for a breathing treatment 6 times in the last two years, all triggered by tobacco smoke, and I had only ever been twice in a year at most even when I lived in the Smoggy City itself. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I was only offered a cigarette once when I was a teenager, and I am SO glad I turned that offer down. I don't think I would have ever been able to quit.
I actually like the smell of one cigarette being smoked outside at some distance from me. Any more than that, though...
Once I walked through a "smoking" car in a train in France. Holy cow. I don't think there was any actual oxygen in that car. I could have made it more breathable by passing gas. It was packed full of people, they were all smoking like chimneys, and they were all looking at me like they were holding their collective breath, but who was I to judge them for staying in such a toxic environment?
I like the smell of pipe smoke, although I hardly ever smell it. It's like incense--kind of a good smell with a hard edge. I abhor the smell of a cigar, however.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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CIgarette smoke, and the smell make me sick to my stomach. Breathing it second hand, even just a little like at a t-ball game out in the open triggers serious asthma, and leaves my body aching for at least 24 hours.
I don't cough (intentionally) or make rude faces at smokers, but I cringe inwardly when I see recreational/casual smoking. Tobacco is for CEREMONIES. Unfortunately so much casual exposure to tobacco smoke has made it physically impossible for me to use it for its proper purpose :^(
Posts: 772 | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Kansas Department of Health & Environment have been running these PSA TV commercials lately that kind of surprise me. They are talking about smoking in restaurants, and say that even with filtration devices, that having "smoking" and "non-smoking" sections of a restaurant is like having "peeing" and "non-peeing" areas of a swimming pool. (yes, they say it just like that, and demonstrate their point).
I was just surprised by the commercials -- and that they are government sponsored. I didn't know they could do that.
My dad smoked heavily, and always said, "it will be something other than the cigarettes that kill me" -- and he was right. And he did try to quit several times, but was never successful.
Telp - I thought you quit last year.
Bob -- you ran cross-country in high school?? That's a yearbook photo I want to see!
quote: Sad thing is, kids that live with smokers for parents often complain about their parents smoking....until they move out on their own and inexplicably start smoking themselves. Turns out they've been addicted their whole lives.
I suppose I can thank my parents for that. They always smoked, but they told me how wrong it is and I saw the effects on them, so I never smoked and never will. As for the stop-smoking cabbal, I'm afraid I'm totally in. My Mom died from lung cancer because of her smoking, and it's not a fun way to go, and I bet she would have liked to stay with her husband and get to know her grandkids and my husband rather than dieing at 51. So I can't understand how you can spoil your life for such a thing, especially since you know it poisons people around you too.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I love the smell of smoke, because the only person I've ever been around that did smoke was my grandmother.
Who died of colon cancer at 63.
However, it's only good in women, because it reminds me of love. In guys, it reminds of the drunk, greasy creeps who hit on me at concerts.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Hey baby. You wanna dance? <takes long drag from Marlboro Red> You're lookin' pretty nice. <blows smoke in face> How about we go back to my place after this rockin' concert? <gives Cheshire cat grin>
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I started smoking freshman year of high school because the cool boy I liked did. It got heavy when I was working weird hours in food service. I was up to 2 packs a day. The only reason I was ever able to quit was when my husband(then boyfiend) gave me the ultimatum of them or me. Smoking killed his mother. She had something that constricted the blood vessels in her body. They ended up taking off her fingers. She still smoked until the day she died holding the cigarettes between her little stumps. I quit cold turkey. That was in 1997. I still want one. Especially when I have a drink or get stressed out. The 1st week I came home with my newborn I might have given you anything you asked for just for a drag. I know it's sad, huh? Posts: 601 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I'll admit to enjoying a good pipe-ful of tobacco now and then. Sad really 'cause in High School I was one of those kids who'd go to elementary schools and tell them not to do drugs, alcohol, or bully other kids. Come to think of it, that group never mentioned tobacco directly...but it was implied, so it's a wee bit hypocritical of me.
posted
You know, this thread was titled and posted in such a way as to invite people to give reasons to stop smoking. It's not like the other thread Mack mentioned (I remember that one, I liked that thread).
In other words, comments made about how bad smoking is before PC had a hissy fit are fair enough-comments after are too, really, since this thread still hasn't been designated 'positive discussion about smoking only'.
It's a stupid, self-destructive habit harmful to the user and to those around them, with many excuses but not a single real reason. Pointing to other vices reduces the truth of that not one iota.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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My dad was a heavy smoker. He lost a lung to lung cancer, and that finally got him to quit. But his health was ****ed up from losing a lung, and he died young.
I hate being around people who smoke. Aside from being unpleasant, it's like watching someone slowly kill himself. Like watching someone practice self-mutilation.
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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If smoking was not harmful to a person's health, I would still be smoking.
If anyone is interested, I quit smoking by using the patch and basically staying inside my non-smoking girlfriend's apartment for about a week. I knew a doctor who gave me a couple full strength sample patches. I cut those into quarters and wore each quarter for two days. By the end of the week, my body had cleaned itself up enough that I was able to smell the smoke, which did smell nasty. When I finally broke down and tried to smoke a cigarette a couple days after I emerged from the apartment, the cig tasted nasty, too.
The other thing that helped me stop smoking was that I got a lung x-ray from the local health clinic. It was pretty clear that I was starting to get emphysema. With the visual aid, it was much easier to really grasp what smoking was doing to me and to subsequently quit.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:with many excuses but not a single real reason.
I would say it has many reasons but not a single excuse.
As far as poisoning other people goes, I think it really depends on where it is. Outside and downwind should be fair game, as should your car and dwelling as long as you have no minors there. Businesses should be the owner's choice, barring hospitals, schools, daycares, and the like. Generally, adults can either kick out the smokers or leave themselves, and take their children to non-smoking establishments.
Public schools need to think very hard about the consequences of making it difficult for students to smoke outside the building.
plaid is right about it being like watching someone slowly kill themselves. My brother is completely addicted. At least I enjoy my habits. I also have two friends who are seriously trying to break the habit. The addiction is as social as it is physical.
Not everyone gets addicted though, strange as that is. I bum about five or six a month from people at parties. (It only counts if you had to pay for it!) Several friends use a bit more than me but far from every day. I guess we just got lucky. We are still stupid.
quote: Businesses should be the owner's choice, barring hospitals, schools, daycares, and the like.
I strongly disagree. In this country we have laws regulating safety at the workplace. The countless bartenders, waitresses, and bus-boys in smoking establishments are getting seriously harmful levels of second hand smoke when they are working.
You can say that they could choose to work elsewhere, but why should they have to? and wouldn't that apply to any workplace safety laws?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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You do not have a right to a job. Quit and work somewhere else, or go on the welfare I have to pay anyway. If I have to pay my taxes it would be nice to think they are supporting individual liberties. Presumably the employee knows when they apply whether the place is non-smoking or not. If there is such a big market for non-smoking establishments, the businesses will go non-smoking voluntarily. It is absurd that a cigar bar in a restaurant had to close due to Lexington's anti-smoking ordinance.
I suppose it would apply to most workplace safety laws. Beyond informing the employee of all known and potential hazards (or at least the non-obvious ones) and permitting employers to fire negligent/dangerous employees, what workplace safety laws are needed?
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The title of this thread brought me in because I've been smoking since November of last year, and I'm starting to cough a bit in this week and the past one, but I'm also spending a lot of time sneezing and with my nose running, and I'm not sure if this is a side effect of the smoking or if I'm actually sick. I didn't have these problems a month ago, and I was smoking nearly as much then.
I heard that Marlboros are worse for you than Camels (which is what I smoke) because they have that fiberglass stuff in their filters while Camels use all cotton. Is that really true?
I don't know how chemically addicted I am to smoking. If I don't think about it, I can go days without smoking, but if I'm sitting at a computer, and there's a lull, I kind of automatically reach for one. And while driving. And, um, after eating. And when I go to a game where everyone is smoking.
My boyfriend who has been smoking for about the past six years or so, will always get a cigarette if he sees someone smoking or if he overhears someone asking someone else for a cigarette (even if it's in a movie he's not actually watching).
I think I could quit if my life didn't already hold so many reminders.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
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