Let me preface this by saying that I do not advocate smoking and I am in no way associated with the tobacco industry.
I have noticed that little attention is paid to people who have smoked all their lives and die in their 80's and 90's after long happy lives. In 2010 there was a story of a woman in Britain who celebrated her 115th birthday by lighting her cigarette on her birthday cake candle. She smoked with "the lads" as she gave them tea and scones while they waited to board the train on their way to France.
My grandfather died in 1974 at the age of 95, a smoker his entire life.
I will be 60 next year. I have smoked since I was 14. My doctor tells me I have the heart of a bull.
Again, I want to emphasis that I do NOT encourage anyone to pick up the habit (addiction). I believe and hope that smoking will die out out in the next generation or two. But, in the meantime, can we not use nicotine addiction as a political football? Politicians will pretend to be oh so concerned about health and advocate the raising of taxes on tobacco, but make this toxic substance illegal? Oops, they are not prepared to go that far. Besides, they get political points by disparaging a group of people and collecting taxes from them.
When smoking in movie theatres was outlawed, I thought "Yeah, that makes sense." Even as a smoker, the smell of someone else's cigarette annoyed me. I felt the same when they progressed to the next level and banned cigarettes from restaurants. That made perfect sense to me! Who needs cigarette smoke drifting across your expensive dinner? I agree! And I can keep my smokes in my pocket until I'm out on the street.
Then they banned smoking in bars. And I thought "Wait. What? In bars?" Since when do we go to bars for our health? There was that bullshit meme going around that bar owners found they could make more money by going smokeless. My response was, if so, why do we need to legislate it? Wouldn't bar owners just naturally go smokeless if there was more money? Why do we need laws to make bar owners make more money? I recall a bar opening up in a trendy part of town that advertised it was 100% smokeless. It lasted two months.
Needless to say, I haven't been to a bar in years. I buy my beer at the store, take it home for one-quarter of the price, smoke at my place, and no one is playing ABBA on the jukebox. (Different rant... some other time)
There is a veterans' hospital here that houses men in their last stages. They are admitted, these veterans of WWII and Korea, when they are at the last stages of their lives. They are then imposed upon by the current anti-nicotine laws and cannot smoke. There is no place these gallant men who served their country can go and enjoy their smokes. At this stage in their lives, who cares? Let them smoke, dammit!
That's my rant. Yes, I agree, smoking is bad. You don't need to turn me on that. In fact, I would love to go to the boardroom of a tobacco company and fire up a smoke just to watch them dive for cover! But could we please stop this demonization of smokers and, by extension, vapers? We have bigger problems.
Out. Peace. Flame if ya have to.
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