[Health] Do you smoke?

[shadowwalker]

If smoking is proven to cause cancer over decades of studies, why is it legal? It makes you wonder what "legal" means in this sense.

Ask yourself why booze is legal (and not taxed or restricted nearly to the extent tobacco is) and why people are pushing for legalizing pot (where it isn't already legal). I mean, how many innocent lives are wrecked/ended because of alcohol - but it's 'socially acceptable' to drink, so ...

Or ask why, after all these decades (and all those billions of dollars researchers have collected), there isn't a cure for cancer. Quick answer: greed and a strong need to dictate.

[Mesafalcon]

Ask yourself why booze is legal (and not taxed or restricted nearly to the extent tobacco is) and why people are pushing for legalizing pot (where it isn't already legal). I mean, how many innocent lives are wrecked/ended because of alcohol - but it's 'socially acceptable' to drink, so ...

Or ask why, after all these decades (and all those billions of dollars researchers have collected), there isn't a cure for cancer. Quick answer: greed and a strong need to dictate.

Social acceptance for booze, ya... the method in which it is consumed surely helps. PLUS, people understand it cause they have access to it. Other drugs, including pot, are misunderstood and speculated wrongly on.

Can't see how what you say directly relates to my comment, but I agree.

[Gavrushka]

Up until 2006, I smoked a lot, mainly medium tar filter cigarettes like Embassy Regal. Well, August 1st of that year, I woke up choking and coughed up a ball of phlegm the size of a golf ball (or so it felt) so I stopped. - Going from 60 a day to zero was quite 'distressing'. I felt like my skin was being flayed and my brain boiling in my skull. At the time, I employed 20 people, and they were all sacked at least half a dozen times over the month that followed.

Even now, I miss smoking, but the pain of withdrawal is a permanent barrier to me ever starting again. - My health is massively improved, and it's great to draw a lungful of air without my chest rattling or exploding into a coughing fit, showering the world with lung batter.

Hell, I avoid sugar, and keep my salt intake down to a couple of grams a day too. - We walk through a minefield that is life, but if we spend all our time worrying about where we're placing our feet, we could well sidestep living the only one we'll ever be granted.

[dither]

Many years ago now i smoked, had smoked for about 8/9 years since leaving school and had become quite a heavy smoker. I'd attempted to kick the habit a few times, haven't we all?
Then one day i had an accident at work, damaged my knee and couldn't walk for a month or so. In that time i got to chain-smoking just about i reckon. Then, out of the blue, it suddenly occurred to me that i hadn't smoked for a couple of days, couldn't stand the smell even.
Doc said i'd smoked and smoked and smoked until i'd eventually got sick of smoking. There's a thing called "aversion therapy" i believe, whereby a person pigs out on something to the point where they just can't stomach any more and i'd done that to myself quite unintentionally with cigarettes. Haven't touched a cigarette in over thirty years and i'm so grateful for having had that knock.

[Mesafalcon]

Doc said i'd smoked and smoked and smoked until i'd eventually got sick of smoking. There's a thing called "aversion therapy" i believe, whereby a person pigs out on something to the point where they just can't stomach any more.

That didn't work with Taco Bell.

[dither]

That didn't work with Taco Bell.

Life eh?

[Kevin]

'Aversion therapy'... I had a friend way back (12 or 13 years-old we were I guess), and his dad was a V.P. of Schick: Cure for Smoking which at the time was all over with advertisements on t.v. and the radio. He (the friend) invited me flying in his dad's personal airplane where I think I developed an aversion for taking off and landing, over and over, proving it as I retched Red-vine and Coca-Cola all over the backseat upholstery. No, I'll never do that again....

[dale]

Many years ago now i smoked, had smoked for about 8/9 years since leaving school and had become quite a heavy smoker. I'd attempted to kick the habit a few times, haven't we all?
Then one day i had an accident at work, damaged my knee and couldn't walk for a month or so. In that time i got to chain-smoking just about i reckon. Then, out of the blue, it suddenly occurred to me that i hadn't smoked for a couple of days, couldn't stand the smell even.
Doc said i'd smoked and smoked and smoked until i'd eventually got sick of smoking. There's a thing called "aversion therapy" i believe, whereby a person pigs out on something to the point where they just can't stomach any more and i'd done that to myself quite unintentionally with cigarettes. Haven't touched a cigarette in over thirty years and i'm so grateful for having had that knock.

lol. my dad did this to me when i was a kid. i kept telling him i wanted to chew tobacco. i was like 10 or something. finally he got sick of hearing
it and pulled into a store and brought out a pouch of red man. i wasn't thrilled with the brand, but thought...cool. got home. i opened and grabbed a little
piece of it out to chew. he said....."oh no no no...this is what you chew. this is how men do it." and he grabbed this huge chunk of it out and handed
it to me. so i chewed it for a bit and acted cool, even though it tasted horrible and i hated it. but at this point, i couldn't back out. man, about 10 minutes
later i was hugging the toilet, vomiting my guts out. my skin was almost green. he actually got scared and was sorry he did it. lol. i love that man.
but it worked. i never chewed tobacco again.

[Loveabull]

I smoked for many years. Then discovered nicotine lozenges are kind of like methadone for cigarettes. They can be substituted for smoking but then you're hooked on them instead. But then you smell better and can suck them anywhere. Less expensive than cigarettes too. When you quit after while smelling the smoke is obnoxious. The only smell I still like as far as smokables are Black and Milds. They smell like cherry wood pipe tobacco. My grandfather smoked a pipe.

[shadowwalker]

Social acceptance for booze, ya... the method in which it is consumed surely helps. PLUS, people understand it cause they have access to it. Other drugs, including pot, are misunderstood and speculated wrongly on.

Can't see how what you say directly relates to my comment, but I agree.

Just pointing out that a lot of dangerous and even deadly things are legal. The booze thing really bugs me, though, when one sees how much damage it does without the social stigma and vigilantism that's attached to smoking.