Acting "cool" has its own side effects

[xNoName]

You must be wondering what I meant by that title. Well, it revolves around Cigarettes. You all know how Teenagers become susceptible to cigarettes in their days of college, or even before that. They think cigarettes will make them look more "cooler" among girls. Well, that misconception is what makes them vulnerable to cigarettes, and it becomes even more and more hard to get rid of the habit. Some develop it from their friends, they try to imitate them, and become vulnerable because of their own stupidity.

I'm gonna be straightforward, I hate those idiots who make misjudgments and don't think of their well being even once. They don't even consider the fact that it's nothing but Black smoke, which if inhaled will cause nothing but troubles.

I'm 17 (now 18) and I have never thought of smoking even once and I never will, I'm adamant on that. Hell I even punched a guy who was smoking in front of me even when I said no and walked away from him. He followed me, and I lost control. Due to that I earned a big scolding from school's principal, But it was worth it.

Anyway, that's it. You can share your own thoughts, your own experiences and all. Discuss.

[† poetictragedy]

I saw a cigarette poster the other day at a gas station that said, "Warning: will cause cancer," in big letters. It amazes me that people will willingly choose to do something that will inevitably kill them.

Also, it's an expensive habit nowadays, and it isn't even all that attractive. Yes, some attractive people smoke, but that's not what makes them attractive. It's actually a turn-off in my book.

[Catwoman]

What amazes me even more is the fact that cigarettes are even legal.

I get the whole 'oh we never knew what it would do back in my day, it was just a fashion'.

Now, I find it to be nothing but a bullshit way of a company to earn money.

Probably bribing authorities. > : /

[Dan Den]

I've never understood peoples fascination with thinking that smoking cigarets look cool, I mean is it worth it in the end. You will die sooner and on top of that you might get cancer and surfer a painful slow death, in the end you should have just quit or something.

I have friends who smoke and try to get me to join in with them but to this day I have never and I don't even have smokers lungs, and another thing I can't handle alcohol even the smell of it gets me a bit drunk the doctor once told me that even half a glass of beer will get me drunk as hell oh well it's not like I ever plan on drinking or smoking.

[seirachan]

smoking is dumb and the company that sells them is evil. smoking is nothing but a turn off. Your teeth get gross, and breath stinks. It's downright nasty. The only reason why smoking is still around is because there are a LOT of people addicted to it including high up there businesses men and no law will be passed against it cause everybody that can pass the law smokes. Everybody thinks of smoking as some kind of stress relief HAHAHAHAHAHA it will cause you stress from the addiction of not having a cig. In the end it will get worse and it will kill you. In Canada BC one pack of smokes is around $14 or more. My mother spends around $40 on a big pack and she is a heavy smoker so it doesn't even last her very long

[Catwoman]

On the bright side, more laws are coming out against smoking.

In Britain, you have to smoke outside or off work premise.

You can't smoke at bus stops either.

[BlackDahlia]

Fun fact: are you guys aware that the chances of smoking your entire life and not dying because of it are higher than those of winning the lottery?

That being said, I have no reason to justify my cigarette usage. I just enjoy it. I never did it to "be cool" or any of those reasons. I just wanted to try it and I liked it. I didn't get addicted and I don't smoke more than 2 cigarettes a day so I don't think it's a bad habit for me. They're cheap as hell so it's not draining my money. I only smoke outside and I don't smoke in people's faces, so I'm at least being a bit responsible about it. I think I will give up smoking when I either get married or become a father. Till then, I'm just going to enjoy my cigarettes And also, neither I nor my clothes smell like cigarettes. I take care of my clothes and of myself and don't let much of the smoke get on them. Only time I do smell like cigarettes are when I go to a party.

[seirachan]

Fun fact: are you guys aware that the chances of smoking your entire life and not dying because of it are higher than those of winning the lottery?

That being said, I have no reason to justify my cigarette usage. I just enjoy it. I never did it to "be cool" or any of those reasons. I just wanted to try it and I liked it. I didn't get addicted and I don't smoke more than 2 cigarettes a day so I don't think it's a bad habit for me. They're cheap as hell so it's not draining my money. I only smoke outside and I don't smoke in people's faces, so I'm at least being a bit responsible about it. I think I will give up smoking when I either get married or become a father. Till then, I'm just going to enjoy my cigarettes And also, neither I nor my clothes smell like cigarettes. I take care of my clothes and of myself and don't let much of the smoke get on them. Only time I do smell like cigarettes are when I go to a party.

Well your a rare bird Sir lol. That's not too bad at all.

[Diablo]

Same as BlackDahlia said I never tried it to be cool, I tried it I liked it. There was time when I used to smoke 3-4 ciggs a day. Now I've cut it to 2-3 ciggs a week. And I sure hope I'll quit one day. I do agree with other people here it's a major turn-off. Whenever I want to have a cigarette I get very anxious to smoke, but after I finish it I get a guilty feeling about smoking it in first place and I also stop my buddies from smoking next one.

[Dan Den]

Ah BlackDahlia&Diablo am a bit confused cause most smokers I know smoke at least one packet a day or more, but you guys claim to be smocking 2-3 a day or a week you must either have mad a typo or you guys are a rare case like seirachan said.

[Diablo]

Ah BlackDahlia&Diablo am a bit confused cause most smokers I know smoke at least one packet a day or more, but you guys claim to be smocking 2-3 a day or a week you must either have mad a typo or you guys are a rare case like seirachan said.

I assure you that it's not a typo. I know of many people who smoke that way that is 2-3 cigarettes a week. Usually people who are addicted, they smoke a packet a day. The term used for this kind of smoking is "Chain smoking". Smoking for me is like having a drink with you friends, you enjoy it along with your friends, it's no fun doing it all alone for me.

[zx0]

On the bright side, more laws are coming out against smoking.

In Britain, you have to smoke outside or off work premise.

You can't smoke at bus stops either.

It pisses me off when people smoke at a bus stop, though I never do anything about it apart from give them the evils :/

If people have the right to smoke near me, I should have the right to make stabbing motions with a kitchen knife near them. If there smoke goes in my face it's an 'accident', just like when my knife goes in their face. I hate smoking.

[BlackDahlia]

Well your a rare bird Sir lol. That's not too bad at all.

lol Well thank you

Ah BlackDahlia&Diablo am a bit confused cause most smokers I know smoke at least one packet a day or more, but you guys claim to be smocking 2-3 a day or a week you must either have mad a typo or you guys are a rare case like seirachan said.

No, it's not a typo. Smoking a pack of cigarettes would take quite a bit of time and I just don't want to spend all day smoking. It's okay if I'm at a party but doing that on a daily basis, it's just not necessary.

Smoking for me is like having a drink with you friends, you enjoy it along with your friends, it's no fun doing it all alone for me.

It's kind of the same for me, except most of the time I would rather just have a smoke by myself

[Littledevul]

Well if someone wants to die let them smoke! They are throwing away their own lifes

[VolvoKing]

Well I've been smoking for 37 years and my father for 74 years at about a pack a day each. Our doctor says we're both very healthy. I started because it was all around me, back then it was a normal part of life and there was nothing to promote quitting. I would like to quit, I've tried the patch, gum, needles,etc. but nothing seems to work yet. I think being able to quit would make you cool. By the way my father has out lived 2 doctors.

[failedhornet]

I am a heavy smoker and enjoy being one. I dont think its about looking cool i think i started smoking simply because my friends did and i wanted to join in. I started smoking heavy about 2 years ago when i got my current job, i smoke all day at work it kinda goes with the territory.

[Max465]

First of all. I hate cigarette smoking. I will never smoke. I hate it. But I am a very tolerant person. If someone wants to ruin their own life and know full well the risks. Then by all means. Go ahead.

I saw a cigarette poster the other day at a gas station that said, "Warning: will cause cancer," in big letters. It amazes me that people will willingly choose to do something that will inevitably kill them.

Also, it's an expensive habit nowadays, and it isn't even all that attractive. Yes, some attractive people smoke, but that's not what makes them attractive. It's actually a turn-off in my book.

Same reason someone eats tons of fatty food, constantly games ruining their health, drinks alcohol. It may be physically harmful, but it makes them feel good in some way. And it's addictive. There isn't any other reason. They start for the wrong reasons, and continue because they're addicted.

[Bluenoser]

I assure you that it's not a typo. I know of many people who smoke that way that is 2-3 cigarettes a week. Usually people who are addicted, they smoke a packet a day. The term used for this kind of smoking is "Chain smoking". Smoking for me is like having a drink with you friends, you enjoy it along with your friends, it's no fun doing it all alone for me.

(While I am quoting and teeing off a post by this gentleman I am actually writing this comment aimed to the general audience, the quoted person is free to comment/rebut if they so choose but there is no obligation to, this quote was not done to specifically enter a discourse with him but to challenge a definition and from there enter into the broader discussion of the topic to the thread at large)

No, actually a pack a day is *NOT* called chain smoking. Chain smoking is literally lighting up another smoke once the current one is finished/goes out, my uncle in his youth was one, he smoked at least and usually more than 4 packs a days while he was a truck driver (indeed, his CB handle was the one match man, he used one in the morning for the first smoke and never used another for the rest of the day lighting his next smoke off the end of the prior one), now THAT is a chain smoker. A pack a day is a moderate level smoker verging on heavy, the levels being discussed of two or three a week let alone a day are exceptionally light and very atypical for long term users of smoking tobacco. I spent three decades as one myself, probably wouldn't have kept with it when I first started except when I did my childhood asthma went away which linked the cigs in my mind as having some helpful effect even though rationally I knew better, but I was in my early teens at the time with no impulse control and a personal highly addictive physiology for stimulants (thanks to a disorder I was born with and alas nicotine is a powerful stimulant). I did start smoking in part to help try to fit in with others (I was the kid the other outsiders wouldn't interact with, so by the time I was finishing Jr High I was really feeling the social isolation), but not to be "cool" so much as just to have something the others saw as normal (we are talking a good 30 years ago, back then smoking was just starting to become socially unacceptable, nothing like it is these days).

Now, I finally quit the day after New Year's Day this year cold turkey and haven't gone back once, not even for a puff even when my uncle died unexpectedly this June past. I did spend the 8 months prior to the New Year telling myself that this was the time I quit and I reduced my intake by roughly 2/3rds as well. I went from nearly a pack a day to around 6-8 a day by slowly spacing them out and by having half of one then butting it and relighting it anywhere from 15-90 minutes later depending one where/when we are talking about in this process, and it worked for me. Now, I never saw it as a "cool" thing, but I knew many that did and started smoking for that reason and once addicted were unable to stop no matter how hard they tried and with what aids they tried. This is one of the nastiest addictions going, and I say that as someone who has had to deal with heavy opiate based pain meds among others for most of the last 20 years, including the unpleasant aspects of coming off of them. I never kidded myself and called it a habit, which annoyed my fellow smokers for the most part, but I also accepted that I was equally addicted, although for me it was more the psychological addiction that had me so firmly in its grip over the physical.

You see, I always had a self destructive streak in my nature, to the point of being actively suicidal in my teens (there were many reasons for it, both disorder related and situational/environmental driven as well which I am not going to get into in this post) and used smoking as a way to channel it away from more immediate and destructive choices/behaviours that I used to practice. I long ago finally managed to learn to control that aspect of myself, but by that time I had been a smoker for over 20 years and so many of my stress coping mechanisms had been intertwined with it that quitting was a major difficulty for me. I had tried twice before this final successful attempt in the past decade only to fail, and I had resigned myself to thinking maybe I will never manage it, but then I started having heart arrythmias. Trust me, when your heart suddenly jumps from normal to over 240 beats per minutes when you are doing nothing but reading in a chair it freaks you out, and when it happens multiple times over a few weeks it really motivates you and that was what I think finally enabled me to break the mental holds it had on me.

Now, one thing I will not do is preach to other smokers about how good it feels to have stopped and all that, it bugged me when done to me and I used to swear I'd never do that if I quit, and I believe in keeping my word. If asked I will tell them all about how I feel, how I did so, and so on, I have little to no shyness and am very open by personal nature, too much so in fact for many people's paste I have noted. As to why smoking is still around despite all that is known about its harmful effects, the reason is simple, it is a MAJOR sin tax revenue generator. I mean really the cost of growing the tobacco, processing it and rolling them into cigarettes, packaging, shipping and marketing them is maybe a tenth of their cost even in the USA, and even less a percentage in places like Canada and other countries that heavily tax the product to try to make it harder for youth to pick up the addiction (or at least that is the reason given of course, sounds better than simple greed). It is really sickening to look at just how much of a revenue generator something this addictive and dangerous to human health is, but that is the bottom line as to why despite the successful decades long education campaign to prove how dangerous and toxic they were, how lethal they are when used properly, and why despite that they should be disallowed from public places entirely they are still publicly sold and permitted to be used with only some restricting where you can light up, much the same as with alcohol except that cigs are allowed in much more public places even know than alcohol ever is. Too cynical? I don't think so, nor does the record over the past quarter century give me any reason to think otherwise.

Well, there is my two cents on this topic for public consideration take it for what you think it is worth...

[Koby]

My mom and dad can smoke a whole cartoon together in 3 days. That's 20 packs divided by 2 over 3 days. So essentially 3 and 1/3 packs each day for each of them. They use to not smoke this much....

[Avith]

I would never smoke or do any drugs. I've tried drinking, but it's not for me so I stopped pretty quick. I definitely find smoking any substance to be very stupid, dangerous, gross, and unattractive. My dad and my sister smoke cigs and I really wish they'd quit.