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<p>Is that the same kind of “mild” as in all those cigarette ads in old magazines depicting movie stars like Gary Cooper (and others who later died of lung cancer) extolling the virtues of whatever unfiltered cigarette they smoked, and waxing poetic about how mild and soothing and good for sore throats they were?</p>
<p>As I think I mentioned in a thread a year or two ago, I had my last cigarette just about 23 years ago – after having smoked for about 15 years, beginning in my first year of law school right after my mother died – and don’t really miss it at all. I just stopped, from one day to the next, because I didn’t want it to affect any child of mine.</p>
<p>As for my son, he still smokes, but as far as I can tell (and from what my ex tells me) it’s still no more than about two cigarettes a day, holding steady for a few years now. (I don’t allow him to smoke in my apartment.) He says he’ll quit someday – but only when he’s ready – and warned me a long time ago that nagging is highly counterproductive. So I’m not too incredibly worried just yet.</p>
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Here’s the thing that I think confuses people about this. Unlike other things such as speech and religion, you have no fundamental right to smoke. Even if the majority of people just don’t like the smell of it, they can vote to exclude it from places where they congregate. They can do this even if it doesn’t harm their health in the least. It’s enough that they think it’s a nuisance that detracts from their enjoyment of public spaces. It would be a different story if there were an effort to ban tobacco entirely, or to prohibit people from smoking entirely in private.</p>
<p>@Hunt Aha, you’ve got it! That’s the only legitimate reason to ban it in public areas that I could think of. It’s like not playing music too loud and picking up after your dog: if people don’t like the smell of cigarette smoke, then the government can enforce a ban. It’s not so much the idea of a ban that bothers me. It’s that people are using misleading arguments to make their position seem stronger.</p>
<p>A vote which uses the “outdoor smoking is bad for non-smokers” justification is one which I do not consider legitimate unless evidence is provided for the claim. I wouldn’t feel compelled to comply with resulting ordinances if I felt the justification was baseless.</p>
<p>A vote which uses the “people don’t like how cigarettes smell” justification is one I could get behind - until somebody invents cigarettes which get around the “people don’t like how cigarettes smell” problem.</p>
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<p>As a child and teenager, I found secondhand smoke (back then much more common and much less avoidable) to be disgusting smelling. It seemed weird to me that anyone would want to deliberately inhale something that smelled so disgusting.</p>
<p>*
^LOL. I know. My kid’s friend threw up after seeing the child birth film.*</p>
<p>I wasnt even talking about giving birth, but um, sex. I was horrified to think that my parents had done that THREE times!</p>
<p>In my day the most graphic depiction of childbirth was in the Good Earth by Pearl S Buck.</p>
<p>Outdoor smoking IS bad for many people. People with asthma or bad allergies will get sick from the smoke. Why would it matter if it were indoors or out?</p>
<p>I have an issue with smoking because I get very ill from it. Other behaviors like being obese or drinking don’t harm others. (leaving aside health costs and drunk driving)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0222.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0222.pdf</a> shows the tax rate by state. 44 states have higher rates than mine. My state also consistently rates in the top 5 for highest smoking rates. I live in the midwest; not south. My bet is many cc posters live in a state where smoking is much more restricted than mine. Finally, last year we passed a public no smoking law but it has as many holes as swiss cheese.</p>
<p>Within the last 10 years, we had to enter our state’s largest children’s hospital by walking through a haze of employee smokers congregated around the doors. Really great for our state’s sickest children :(</p>
<p>Let’s call it what it is. It’s a drug. People “enjoy” smoking because they are addicted to it. Simple as that. Heroine users “enjoy” heroine too but that’s illegal.</p>
<p>The ability to rationalize goes with the territory. My dad was the master of it. He would argue that he could walk out of the house and be assaulted by diesel fumes from a truck going by. So why give up the butts? </p>
<p>I see smokers the same way I see other drug addicts. They’re hooked. I sympathize with them because that could be me if I had started. But the sympathy only goes so far. As hard as it is to quit, you DO have a choice about it. And if it takes 5 attempts, they try five times. And then six if need be. </p>
<p>This idea of “smoking for pleasure” is absurd. Next it will be “I could stop anytime I want!”</p>
<p>So stop. It’s likely to kill you and may well hurt the people you love as well.</p>
<p>My father was a radiologist, wrote about heart disease, gave talks about it … and smoked until he almost died from it. He loved smoking. He missed it for the rest of his life. He found the process extremely pleasurable and both relaxing and focusing. That is in many ways the real power of nicotine: it both raises your energy level and relaxes you into a state where you can focus. (That is unless you smoke too much and get jitters.) </p>
<p>It’s a bad choice. But I don’t think we should outlaw bad choices. We drink. We can’t limit drinking to people who can handle it, who don’t get violent or dangerously reckless with drink. </p>
<p>I’m also in favor of legalizing many substances. Those are somehow condemned as “immoral” choices but they’re actually no different than other choices we decide are “moral”.</p>
<p>Exactly EPTR people “enjoy” cigarettes because they are satisfying their addition not because there is anything pleasurable about smoking.</p>
<p>Check out these warnings. Only an idiot would read these warnings and start smoking.</p>
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<p>Only compared to how crappy you feel when nicotine withdrawal starts to begin 45 minutes after the last cigarette. </p>
<p>Non-smokers never feel the anxiety of drug withdrawal it the first place and, therefore, don’t need to freebase a hit of nicotine to feel “better”.</p>
<p>I always thought it was normal to feel like hell first thing in the morning – until I quit smoking and realized it was because I was waking up in serious drug withdrawal after hammering myself with carbon monoxide the day before. It turns out, that wasn’t normal – just one of those little parts that come with “enjoying” smoking…</p>
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<p>Almost everyone starts smoking as a young teenager. They don’t decide to become smokers. Just try a cigarette or two. Everyone knows they won’t get hooked and become a real smoker. Until it’s too late.</p>
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LEGALIZE the WEED. </p>
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Kids do the darnedest things. </p>
<p>But teenagers DO choose to become smokers…by taking that first puff.</p>
<p>IIRC, most people are hooked before they’re 18. Therefore they don’t see the package. </p>
<p>Or, they’re not stupid, but easily influenced by peer pressure… you know, like most teenagers.</p>
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<p>When I was in high school, I had no desire to smoke anything. Nor did any of my friends. The high school did have an outside smoking area, but the smokers were a low status group or clique in the high school.</p>
<p>You apparently need to reread what he wrote.
Do you seriously think he was saying “everyone” smokes in high school?</p>
<p>I haven’t smoked a cigarette in about 30 years (or maybe more).<br>
Yet, every now and then, I still have an mild urge to smoke a cigarette.
This can’t be a physical addiction. It’s more a desire to grab an opportunity to sit and reflect within a fixed, short interval of time while projecting (in a cloud of smoke) the boundaries of my personal space. Fortunately, I’ve been able to satisfy this urge in less harmful ways (like cranking out a College Confidential post in the time it takes my coffee to get cold). </p>
<p>I’m sure other people smoke to satisfy a variety of psychological needs. Many teenagers probably find smoking, at first, an easy way to look and feel “grown up”. Then they get physically hooked. As they become truly grown up and their lives get complicated, they find smoking a way to relax for a few calming minutes. </p>
<p>Sure, it’s a dumb thing to do, but it must fill a real need or else millions of people wouldn’t be doing it. It’s an expensive habit these days and the physical addiction isn’t that strong.</p>
<p>*
When I was in high school, I had no desire to smoke anything. Nor did any of my friends. The high school did have an outside smoking area, but the smokers were a low status group or clique in the high school.*</p>
<p>I guess that we are supposed to think you are smarter than the average bear?
:rolleyes:
Granted, I was on the spectrum (undiagnosed)raised by two people who also were probably on the spectrum.(also undiagnosed) So my memories could be unique to me.
What I remember about cigarettes-
In grade school we thought smoking would make us look older & cooler.
The bras we tried to make ourselves to hold up our aaa breasts, were obviously made by a child who barely knew how to blanket stitch but cigarettes we could buy at the dime store.
Candy cigarettes that is. Also bubble gum cigars.
When we reached junior high, we ran into older kids who actually had real cigarettes and knew when to go to the local 7-11 to buy them.
We felt sophisticated & glamorous like Audrey Hepburn.
It didn’t taste so good, but we practiced posing with it, only taking enough puffs to keep it lit.
When my parents commented that I smelled like smoke I told them that my friends parents smoked.
It was a great crutch for awkward kids. When waiting, instead of looking lonely, we could play with our cigarettes, and if we wanted to make conversation, we could ask for a light.
It felt very companionable sitting & smoking, you hardly had to talk at all.
I only smoked around other people. I could make a sugar daddy last a month by wrapping it carefully, I could make a pack of cigarettes last all summer, including sharing them.
Practically everyone I knew smoked at keggers.Even the boys & girls in choir because even though it is bad for your voice, they wanted to fit in too & not appear like they thought they were superior to everyone else.
Something that obviously not everyone cares about,
;)</p>
<p>In regard to smoking in public places, my objection with it, is finding cigarette butts on the ground. I hate finding them at the beach or anywhere else. Yuck!</p>
<p>I used to work at a state park and everyone had to help picking up the beach and the bathrooms & showers.
Cigarette butts were at the bottom of the scale of disgusting things people left behind.
:p</p>