<p>Smoking is a wonderful, wonderful thing.</p>
<p>It helps clean the gene pool of all those morons who choose to smoke. Also, the same for drugs and alcohol - if you need cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol to live your life, then you aren’t really living life at all.</p>
<p>"Northstarmom - so, since I have smoked, let’s see, maybe 8 cigarettes since I turned 18 in November, I should have marked “Yes”? "</p>
<p>Very true.I don’t smoke – at all. I would not want to room with an even occasional smoker like you. I detest cigarette smoke, and I do not admire smokers.</p>
<p>I am curious, why wouldn’t you check the box indicating that you smoke? Are you concerned about having to room with a smoker? If so, why do you smoke at all?</p>
<p>Nicotine binds to nervous receptors, making it harder for your brain to transmit signals. Once the nicotine binds, you need more of it for the receptors to work again (temporarily). The reason smokers may shake or lose some coordination is because the brain has become dependent on the nicotine to complete transmission of signals.</p>
<p>Sounds fun.</p>
<p>You anti-smokers are amazing. If you don’t like smoking then don’t smoke, but why do you feel the need to play health police with those that do? I don’t smoke and I don’t like the smell of smoke, but I also don’t think its any of my business to tell anyone else how to live their life. The arrogance in you people is incredable! Like ‘unlucky charms’ up there saying that if you smoke, drink or do drugs he hopes you die so it will clear up the gene pool for him and his ilk. Unlucky charms, you’ll have a great life playing dungeons and dragons with your star wars buddies while everyone else is out partying.</p>
<p>You anti-smokers are amazing. If you don’t like smoking then don’t smoke, but why do you feel the need to play health police with those that do? I don’t smoke and I don’t like the smell of smoke, but I also don’t think its any of my business to tell anyone else how to live their life. The arrogance in you people is incredible! Like ‘unlucky charms’ up there saying that if you smoke, drink or do drugs he hopes you die so it will clear up the gene pool for him and his ilk. Unlucky charms, you’ll have a great life playing dungeons and dragons with your star wars buddies while everyone else is out partying.</p>
<p>Yep, us non smokers are arrogant. We just don’t get why people are so dumb as to smoke. Its addictive, its smelly, its costly, it affects the health, and many people who smoke have tried to quit several times over. The quitting smoking business is HUGE! Why is that??</p>
<p>Smokers are now banished to the outdoors to stand in alleys and litter sidewalks. Good</p>
<p>Did a smoker kill you parents or something? Jeez. I have an idea citygirlsmom, lets talk about fat people. Being a fit young man myself, I can’t see why people are so dumb to be fat. They sweat, they stink, it affects their health, and many fat people have tried to loose weight several times. The loosing weight business is HUGE! Why is that? </p>
<p>Fat people are laughed at and forced to down tubs of icecream in their houses. Good.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I think we should force fat people to eat salads and not let them live with the rest of the thin population. C’mon guys, its easy to pick on smokers, but you can show you’re truely against personal freedom if you join me in my crusade to do away with anyone over 10 percent body fat. Who’s with me?</p>
<p>Smoking sets bad example</p>
<p>Fads come and go, fashion styles change, and what’s in now will later be out. The same goes for smoking - it’s becoming less socially acceptable, and for a good reason. Years ago, smoking was a mainstream activity; nowadays, smoking is looked at as disgusting, unhealthy, and foolish by many.</p>
<p>Years earlier, people were allowed to smoke pretty much anywhere–teachers were even allowed to smoke in classrooms. Nowdays smoking is banned in many buildings, campus dorms, and some cities have a city-wide smoking ban. Many smokers don’t see a point in these restrictions, but I see these restrictions as a way to improve citizens’ health and the condition of the environment.</p>
<p>As more smoking restrictions are set up, smokers may feel pressure to quit, and young adults may be prevented from starting to smoke in the first place. Fewer smokers will cause fewer cancer cases and non-smoking citizens will really appreciate breathing the less-polluted air. I myself would appreciate being able to walk to class without smoke being blown in my face, and I’m sure many others feel the same way I feel.</p>
<p>People who choose to smoke on campus have two options. Their first option is to obey those restrictions on smoking such as staying farther than 25 feet from residence halls when smoking, and to endure the health hazards that come along with their choice to smoke. The second (and more beneficial) option for smokers is to improve their health, longevity, personal hygiene (smoke odors really linger in clothes), and save a lot of money by kicking the habit. Since smoking is a habit that is very hard to quit, there is a lot of support that can be offered to those who are seeking help to quit.</p>
<p>I find is really sad how smokers are using a lot of their time to do something that only does harm to themselves and others. However, I am glad to see smoking becoming less socially acceptable, and I hope even more people start realizing the damage smokers are doing to themselves and the environment. I’d like to see even more people realize that there are much better things to do with time than to smoke.</p>
<p>Molly Warner
Freshman
Psychology</p>
<p>After hearing all of this I think I’m going to start smoking just to annoy you guys.</p>
<p>Question is this…by saying ‘smoker’ you indicate the cigarette crowd. I think you’ll find more respect for your accasional Pipe/Cigar smoker than your cigarette smoker, just because of the different connotations they carry. (Cigarette-cheap low class/ Cigar or Pipe-Academic wealthy high class)</p>
<p>"Being a fit young man myself’</p>
<p>smokers are not fit young men for long.</p>
<p>also, I really dont care what you do to your body as long as I have nothing to do with it and it doesn’t affect me. However, secondhand smoke DOES affect me and damages my health. Why should I have to bear the health consequences for your bad decisions.</p>
<p>Again, smoke whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, in the company of whomever you want, as long as it does not affect me :)</p>
<p>personally, I think we should legalize marijuana and tax it!</p>
<p>There are several important distinctions between being a smoker and being overweight.</p>
<p>1) Smokers can harm others with second-hand smoke, while fat people don’t exactly pose a risk to anyone but themselves.
2) There are genetic causes of obesity, but as far as I know, nobody is genetically predisposed to smoke. It’s completely choice.
3) Being fat is not illegal</p>
<p>That said, I agree with you regarding the overly harsh abuse of smokers by some of the commenters on this thread…you don’t have to smoke to understand that a smoker is a person with just as many legal/social rights and privileges as a nonsmoker does.</p>
<p>On a side note, sempitern, marijuana IS taxed right now.</p>
<p>For Greg Spritzer, college and nicotine go hand in hand. A 26-year-old student at Montana State University, Billings never smoked in high school, and he manages to go cold turkey over the summers. But as soon as a new semester starts, he’s back to six or seven cigarettes a day. What is it about college life that lures him to smoke? Stress? Peer pressure? “It’s mainly boredom,” Spritzer says.</p>
<p>Until recently, health experts largely ignored smoking on college campuses, says Henry Wechsler, PhD, a researcher with the Harvard School of Public Health. “Alcohol is such a major issue [in college] that smoking kind of got lost in the shuffle,” he says. But in the last few years, smoking on campus has become a hot topic, and for good reason: The college years are crucial in making or breaking an addiction.</p>
<p>Some smokers, like Spritzer, take their first puffs in college. (Spritzer himself got started when someone passed around cheap cigars during a late-night card game.) Other students experiment with cigarettes in high school but start smoking heavily in college. And like smokers of any age, many college students are actively trying to quit.</p>
<p>The importance of the college years hasn’t been lost on the tobacco companies, says John Pierce, PhD, head of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the University of California, San Diego. “The industry has been focusing heavily on getting its promotional material to college students,” he says. In some ways, he says, college students are the perfect audience. They’re old enough to buy cigarettes but young enough to be highly receptive to ads promoting a hip, fun lifestyle. The number of cigarette advertisements in magazines and newspapers popular with college students demonstrates this marketing push. According to the Alternative Weekly Network, tobacco industry advertising accounts for a whopping 70 percent of the advertising revenue of alternative weekly newspapers.</p>
<p>A single highly popular ad campaign can make all the difference. Pierce sums up the rise in college smoking in two words: Joe Camel. Although the once-ubiquitous cartoon mascot for Camel cigarettes was withdrawn in 1997 due to public outcry, the ads drove an enormous boom in preteen and teen smoking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – one that is still felt today. (For more information on teenage smokers, click here.)</p>
<p>Other marketing strategies go right to the heart of campus life. Tobacco companies throw parties in on-campus bars, give away hip merchandise, and sponsor concerts and other events, some of which require the purchase of cigarettes to gain admittance. For example, reports the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, in 1999 Philip Morris hosted 117 events, including concerts by such well known bands as Smash Mouth and the Afghan Whigs, which were open only to those who had accumulated the requisite number of “Marlboro Miles.”</p>
<p>Besides being bombarded by ads from Big Tobacco, students face another obstacle. When the allure of smoking finally wears off and students are ready to quit, there are often no support services available to help them break the habit. According to a recent survey by Harvard’s Wechsler and colleagues, out of 393 four-year colleges, fewer than 60 percent offered any sort of smoking cessation programs. And those that did exist were poorly publicized or not well designed to appeal to college-aged smokers.</p>
<p>Colleges could also take steps to make it harder for students to smoke, Wechsler says. Currently, fewer than one-third of all colleges ban smoking in all indoor areas, including dorm rooms and offices. When colleges do take a stand, it makes a big difference. The Journal of American College Health reported in March, 2001 that nonsmoking students are 40 percent less likely to take up the habit when they live in smoke-free dorms.</p>
<p>As a nursing student, Greg Spritzer knows that six or seven cigarettes a day are six or seven too many. He plans to quit as soon as he finds a place of his own to live off-campus. Of course, finally getting that degree wouldn’t hurt, either.</p>
<p>– Chris Woolston, M.S., is a health and medical writer with a master’s degree in biology. He is a contributing editor at Consumer Health Interactive, and was the staff writer at Hippocrates, a magazine for physicians. He has also covered science issues for Time Inc. Health, WebMD, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. His reporting on occupational health earned him an award from the northern California Society of Professional Journalists.</p>
<p>Definently agree there. THe occasional cigarette at college got me through a lot.</p>