[Kizzume]

Quote by: Technosoul Now you are talking in my ballpark. Let's look at this from that angle, what if there were no health risks. Would it be logical to quit or to not start smoking? It is logical not to get involved in anything that is addictive, needless to say, if you can drink wine in moderation, and not become a wino, there is a difference. If one smoked in moderation they could go for hours betweens cigarettes, perhaps only lighting up a cigar after dinner, once a day. But most people who smoke in moderation end up doing it all the time. Then it creates a problem. I am sitting here right now smoking the last cigarette in my pack, it is almost 8 oclock in the morning here. This means I must stop what I am doing, drive to the store and buy another pack, and then come back home so I can finish posting stuff on this debate. In business - time is money. But today is Sunday. That problem could have been avoided if I had stocked up ahead of time so that I would not run out of cigs at the wrong time. I did not follow the boy scout motto "be prepared". A person must plan ahead and if they did that then that would solve the "panic problem". Same thing can happen with coffee or other things we use all the time. If a person runs out of money and cannot afford to buy a pack, big problem. So it is important to be able to afford a habit, to be able to support a habit. When people use expensive drugs they often turn to crime because it costs so much. The new sin taxes are trying to create that same situation for cigarette smokers. Now some Eastern religions promote extreme moderation. As do the Mormons. Some view materialism as an addiction that prevents freedom and independance - liberty from needing things. The less you absolutly need the more you have. A paradox that make sense when you understand it. If I walked everywhere I would no longer need to depend on gasoline, and would not be concerned about the cost of gasoline. Because I do not need to buy it I have more money to save. If I liberated my self from things like TV sets, CD players, in style clothing, and use cheap things to sit on instead of buying nice chairs, I could via moderation live on next to nothing. My bank account would be full. If we could live without eating food we would not even need a job at all, total liberation and freedom would be possible. Now most of us are not rich, we have only so much money in our household budget to go around. So we employ "selective moderation". If the cost of cigarettes goes up, then we must stop smoking or we most stop buying something else, we have all kinds of materialistic things we can do without, so we just pick one and stop using it, and use that expense to pay the cig - sin tax with. People do the same thing when they want some prescription drugs, they cut down on renting DVDs or whatever. Selective moderation instead of total moderation like a Monk might do in a cave. I am lucky and do not have yellow stains on my fingers or teeth. But the white walls can turn yellow after a while. Just like the carpet gets dirty after a while for other reasons. Painting the walls in the house is common maintenance just like sweeping the floors, or like cleaning the area above the stove where greese can collect. Or cleaning the fireplace in the living room, and the windows. A house is a living space and not a "show room" for perfectionism. Unless you keep very busy cleaning all the time you will have some messy areas. A lot of educated people smoke. Just go to a hospital at night time and you will see the hospital staff smoking outside of the emergency room door. You will see teachers at a university light one up when they leave campus. You do not have to be a PhD to stop smoking ether. Some uneducated hobos have quit smoking. A friend of mine smokes cigars, one lady came up where we were selling stuff at the swapmeet and started to bug him about the cigar smell and he simply said "and what is your vice lady?". Suddenly she became silent and walked away without another word. Anti-tobacco ads are subliminally giving people thoughts? Where did that idea come from? Some people enjoy fresh air and so of course they roll down the windows, some smokers do it so they can flick the ashes out the window instead of getting distracted trying to hit the ashtray target (new cars have no ashtrays). If the windows of the car are rolled up you still are not breathing fresh air even among non-smokers, you just do not know it because you cannot smell it. But fact is, they are breathing out of their mouths and that can reduce the amount of fresh air present in the car. And perhaps even breathing out germs into the car. Good air circulation is wise for a number of reasons. Giving up smoking so that you can be "as strong" as other people you know is not uncommon I guess. It is called "being influenced by peer pressure". And by the competitive urge to "keep up with the Jones" (Jonses - whatever way you spell it?). Example: If James Dean or John Wayne gave up smoking then anyone who wanted to be just like the movie idol they worship would follow suit. If some famous golf star wears Nike shoes, the fans will ware Nike shoes. So what's the point? Such action has nothing to do with thinking for your self or with being logical. It is "copycatism" (new word).

I don't believe in putting extra taxes on cigarettes UNLESS the only thing those taxes go for are non-religious programs that help people quit cigarettes, and even then, I don't think they should be nearly what they are now. The cost of cigarettes is outrageous now. Raising the price via outrageous taxes should not be used as an attempt at getting people to quit.

What I DO believe in though is either a strong ventilation standard for all public indoor places that want to allow smoking (which if the ventilation standard was stringent enough, could allow for people to smoke in office buildings as well and not make their coworkers breathe smoke or smell like an ashtray when they get home), OR what has been happening in a number of states--ban indoor smoking in public places altogether. I'd prefer the former than the latter because it allows more freedom, but not very many people seem to like the idea for some reason.

Before they had the smoking in public places ban here in Washington state, I had thought about going to some of the places I thought were cool with an incense stick and burning it in the bar to make a statement. I didn't feel like getting my *ss kicked, so I didn't, but I sure thought about it a lot--if they would have asked me "put that out. It stinks." I would have replied, "if you do the same."

So I could get some extra cash, last night I was the inside doorman (for the upstairs area) to a bar at a native American reservation called the Cedarwood Dome. Because it's on a reservation, they allow smoking. I had forgotten this and failed to remove my cellphone and wear my metal-framed glasses instead of my plastic ones. Big mistake. Once I got home, to get the smell out of my glasses frames, I had to soak them in bleach water for 20 minutes, something that isn't so great for the frames because over time it can make plastic brittle. Then there was the issue of the phone, especially the rubbery case to it--it reeked the most. Even after a 3 hour soak in bleach water, it still smells like cigarette smoke.

I tell you, not even incense do that to things in that much time. If you buy something at a headshop (you know what I mean) where they have 1,000 incense sticks just sitting around and a few burning at all times the store is open, in a week or so the smell from the incense is gone. This is simply not the case with cigarette smell--it's very strange. I've also never seen yellowed/browned walls from incense--candles maybe that were poorly made or made from poor materials, but not incense.

Anyway, my biggest complaint about cigarettes is the smell. If you hang around a smoker indoors while they smoke, ANYONE that you are around until you take a long shower and soak anything plastic you're wearing in bleach water will think you're a smoker too. I don't like people to think I do something as stupid as smoke cigarettes. Yes, I called it STUPID. Smoking is by far the MOST STUPID addictive product people can do. Heroin and meth are the worst FOR someone, but at least those actually get people high, they don't just take care of a nicotene fit. It doesn't seem worth it for someone to be addicted to something that doesn't even do very much, and what makes it worse is that cigarette smokers usually can hardly get by with 2 hours without having a cigarette--most would have one less than every 10 minutes if their workplace allowed it. Can you think of any other addictive substance that people expect to or wish they could do while working besides cigarettes? Oh yeah--caffeine, but caffeinated beverages don't make other people stink and don't turn things yellow--the only people that are affected by caffeine are the ones ingesting it.

So--in a nutshell, I think smoking is STUPID. And hell no I don't think cigarettes should be illegal.