So many people still smoke cigarettes

I have and have had my share of vices including smoking.

Some of my vices are more difficult to see or seem to be more socially acceptable but they are still areas of my life that need work.

“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”
- Elizabeth Taylor
 

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Smoking was once considered elegant, particularly during the mid-20th century Hollywood era, where film stars were depicted as sophisticated and glamorous while smoking. The tobacco industry capitalised on this by marketing cigarettes as fashionable and empowering, associating smoking with wealth, allure, and a stylish lifestyle.

Smoking damages virtually every organ in the body by introducing over 5,000 chemicals that cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases such as diabetes and immune system damage. It also negatively affects eye health, bone strength, skin, and reproductive health in both men and women.

Smoking is responsible for an estimated 480,000 deaths each year in the USA, including deaths from active smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke. It remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease, harming nearly every organ in the body and leading to numerous illnesses. That 480,000 deaths eclipses the firearms figure ten times over. In the USA, personal safety is always on the agenda, yet still people smoke!
 
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I started in the Marines and quit before I was married. Wife’s rule was no smoking or no wedding. I agreed and suffered withdrawal for about 10 days. While I was in high school, I worked on a farm. Most of the hands chewed tobacco, so I tried it. The girl I was dating at the time told me my breath smelled to high Heaven and she refused to kiss me, so I gave up chewing.

What is it with women and their arbitrary rules? (Just kidding.)
 
We nurses and doctors were the worst offenders. I think the stress was a part of it. But, we'd smoke and gulp down coffee after a difficult case in the O.R. To say nothing of the E.R. staff.

I smoked like a fiend for more years than I care to count. Today, I cannot abide the odor of cigarette or cigar smoke. Good thing, that.
 
When I was a kid my whole family smoked cigarettes. In the house, in the car, stores, doctor offices, etc. The only time
it bothered me was in the car, especially in stand still traffic on the L.A. freeways along with the stench of leaded gasoline.
When I grew up I was the only one who didn't but then I didn't drink like they did either. Not sure if I was the white sheep
in a black sheep family or vice versa. None of my sons smoke, they did try in their 20's and quit for whatever reason.
I found it best not to preach or make snarky comments to any smoker about it, it just seems to make them smoke more.
I have seen non-smokers in public be ruder than the smoker was such as: a lady about 30 feet from the entrance to a store
saw a man just place a cigarette in his mouth and she began hacking before he even lit it.
Conscience smokers don't bother me, it's not mine to judge, there is enough warnings out there, they know them. I have
noticed most smokers in public now do try to step off away from people to partake more than it used to be.
I have also noticed that over the years the odor has gotten stronger than it used to be. I attribute that to the increase in
chemicals they use to make shelf life longer.
As with any vice someone has, I revert back to the "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone"
 
I smoked when I was young, stopped when I started having kids. Started up again when the youngest was around 8, when things with the ex got so bad I was passively suicidal. Quit again when I left him and haven’t had one since.

I was paranoid about the smell!! Didn’t smoke in the house or my car, never re-wore any item of clothing, everything was washed after one wear, my winter coats were the washable kind and they got washed once a week. Washed my hair every day.

I have a couple of friends who will smoke one or two cigs a day. If I could smoke like that I’d still be smoking! But there’s no way, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t smoke like that.

I do smoke a cigar once or twice a year, always on New Year’s Eve! Unlike cigarettes, I have zero craving for more than the one.
 
My mom and my old man both smoked like chimneys. Camel straights. My old man died of a heart attack at 45 and my mom the same at 53. That's an average of 49 years. I don't smoke and I'm 78. So the way I figure it, I've had my 49 years plus 29 of somebody elses. Probably a smoker's.
 
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I have never smoked or done drugs.

People used to comment that I must be rich to afford a horse, as their cigarette was dangling from their lips.

I replied if they’d give those rotten smelting things up, they too could have a horse.

The only thing cigarettes used to be good for, was to peel the paper off and feed the tobacco to the horses- that is how we dewormed them waaay back in the old days on the farm..
 
Not as many smoke as once did. Society has shifted, probably mostly for health reasons. I have noticed a lot of films and TV are reverting to showing smoking as sophisticated. There must be some big money behind it. It doesn't have to even look sophisticated. Just showing people smoking in the worst contexts is still advertising.
 
At one time (and maybe it still is) nicotine was the most addictive narcotic in the land.
It’s more addictive than Heroin or Cocaine.

In 2000 cigarette companies admitted knowing that nicotine had the addiction tendencies it has.
The cigarette companies were well aware that smoking cigarettes caused cancer as far back as the 1940’s.
The cigarette companies ran all kinds of campaigns to keep this information from the public.
Seven cigarette companies agreed to pay the states over $200 billion to help for paying
cigarette related illnesses, especially cancer.

Cigarette companies were also well aware that smoking caused respiratory diseases such as
COPD, Bronchitis, Pneumonia, etc. Cigarettes can also cause cancer in other parts (organs) of the body.
Nicotine is not always the blame for death from smoking. Tar can clog arteries that cause strokes and heart attacks.
 
Kadee said:
I’ve never smoked ..or even tried one in my mouth …..neither has my hubby ….the stench is horrible :sick::sick::sick:

Ive asked the kids if they taste any better than they smell :sick: …
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My parents didn't smoke and neither did any of my wholesome teenage friends. One day four of us were together, bored, on the city bus. One of them picked up a full length Winston off the floor and lit it up. (See how old I am? People could smoke on the bus no one cared much about germs.) One by one they each took a little puff and coughed. I took a full drag and felt a wonderful wave of peace and pleasure.

It just goes to show you never can tell.
 
911 said:
At one time (and maybe it still is) nicotine was the most addictive narcotic in the land.
It’s more addictive than Heroin or Cocaine.
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I don't know which addictions are strongest, but I was addicted to both nicotine and alcohol at different times. Quitting nicotine was hard. Cravings persisted intensely for a year. Years later I broke the addiction cycle with alcohol. That seemed like a walk in the park compared to nicotine.

30 years ago, when I quit alcohol, I attended AA meetings where many members were sworn off alcohol, but unable to stop smoking. We had smoking meetings twice a week and we had big turnouts for those. The air was thick with smoke in those meetings, thicker I have ever experienced. OK I fought forest fires as a summer job. That may have been worse, but only sometimes.
 

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