Smoking cigarettes

vacant3by4-:

I know everyones like, smoking isn't cool, but..

I smoke for 3 reasons;
1. It's something I "shouldn't do", and I'm 15, naturally, I want to do it.
2. It IS cool. How can I look up to my idols, Gerard Way, Frank Iero, Kat Von D, Slash, without being like.. hey, they're smoking and it looks kinda cool.
3. I smoke socially; theres nothing like a good chat and a smoke, or being wasted and having a smoke lol.

But I can't help but think, drinking fucks your liver up with excessive use, and people don't get on at alcoholics half as much as they get on smokers.

And i smoke lights so y'know (:

1. There are a bunch of things you shouldn't be doing. You shouldn't jump off of a bridge, so will you because you shouldn't?
2. So once again with the whole jumping off a bridge thing: IF your idols jumped off a bridge and lived, but there was a high risk of dying, would you? It's not like they encourage it and say: Hey kids! Smoking is cool, so go do it!
3. Smoking socially doesn't make it any better than smoking alone. It's the same thing.

And yes, people do get on alcoholics like they do smokers. Thus why there's rehab and counseling, which a majority of alcoholics do after people get onto them about it. Also I wasn't aware that drinking caused cancer over time (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not quite sure), which is treatable but has the chance of coming back. You can fix liver problems after an amount of time. By the time lung cancer is done with you, you can be missing a lung, which can't regenerate itself over time like livers can.

Oh and btw, smoking lights? No major difference than if you smoked a regular, just so you know.

Smoking is bad for he health, yes. And drinking too. I jst wonder if people smoke becuase they need to release pent-up stress or just because they want to look 'cool' among their friends.

I don't smoke, of course, but both my parents do.

Drinking can cause some cancers... Just sayin..
I think smokings too social..
I dont do it, cuz i dont need to hurry my own ailments,
But my friends do. But they do alot of things.
When people say its 'peer pressure' and such as why they began, i just cant help but think their searching for acceptance,
I just dont know why people look for acceptance, really.
Just my anti-socality..

It's a personal choice, same as what colour to dye my hair, what shirt I'm going to wear in the morning, whether I drive to the store to get more cigarettes or walk down.

No particular reason why I do it, I just do. And I like it. And if I kill my own lungs, that's my problem to deal with (the government is looking at cutting back on smoking/obesity/alcohol-related disease treatments in hospitals to spend more money on 'genuinely' ill people).
Oh, and to add to that, a 28-year-old woman who had never smoked a cigarette in her life recently died of lung cancer. She ate all the right foods, exercised frequently, and looked after herself - and still died of a 'smoker's disease'. So tell me why I should be denied treatment for what MAY OR MAY NOT have been caused by smoking, unless the doctors can 100% guarantee me that it was *this* particular cigarette that did it.

And, if I may, I think we need to start treating alcohol in the exact same manner we treat smokers - whether it's problem drinking or just a beer at the pub after work every Friday. 'Every cigarette can kill' - so can every pint, every schooner, every scotch on the rocks. It's socially acceptable to be a falling-down drunk from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, provided you show up to work on Monday and remember to post the photos on Facebook, but crack out a lighter and everybody in the room is screaming at you that you're a jerk.
Well, I never heard of anybody smoking a whole pack of cigarettes and then punching some random in the head until they died in front of the paramedics. I never heard of anybody smoking a pack of cigarettes, then get behind the wheel of their car and plough into a group of kids on their way home from a school dance. I never heard of anybody smoking a pack of cigarettes and then raping a woman who was just popping down to the store to grab some milk and a bar of chocolate.

Alcohol is *just as bad*, if not worse, than tobacco.
And when alcohol is treated as the socially unacceptable, disease and injury-causing DRUG that it is, I might look at my pack-a-day habit and make some changes.
But what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

littlewindmill:

Drinking can cause some cancers... Just sayin..

Examples? I've read it increased the risk but never causes it.

i really don't care, i'm not here to judge. just pointing out some weaknesses in things. i don't get why people think it's better, per say, to drink than smoke, but some of the reasons why people smoke are stupid, tbqh. it's your choice, and i know, but it's... idk. i don't even know what my original point I was attempting to make, haha. I think I wanted to say that alcohol can't really be compared to smoking, they're two totally different things. I just got pushed into the wrong direction.

I don't prefer them much, though. I've never had one, and I don't think I want to, no offense to the smokers in here. Most of the time, people I know are like itching to have a cigarette at the end of the school day and if they don't get one they bitch and bitch and whine and whine about how nobody will give them one. At the end of the day, there's other ways to relieve stress and tension, but if you choose smoking to do so, who am I to judge?

^ Lol oh yeah, I know *that* feeling.
It's not so much that they need to relax, or to wind down... it's just that they needagoddamncigaretterightnowbeforeiripyourdamnheadoff!!!!
I mean, before I started smoking, I didn't really get that 'stressed' feeling. It's just a lack of nicotine that causes it, making you want to get a hit. Same as, if you're not a heroin addict, you don't get that awful feeling when you're coming down that makes you need another hit 'to relax'. Same as if you're not a drinker, you don't 'need a beer to unwind' when you get home after a long, hard day at work. It's basically the drug talking in every case. If you don't drink, you don't need to. If you don't smoke, you don't need to. If you don't do drugs, you don't need them.

I don't think any smokers would be offended at your declaration that you don't ever want to try smoking. You're smarter than most. Hey, I truly wish I had never started - all I can say in my defence is that I didn't start it in an attempt to be cool or fit in, I was just genuinely curious as to what it was like. And, I can honestly say that the first, oh, I dunno, fifty cigarettes I smoked were absolutley disgusting, and should have been more than enough to turn me right off.
And then I was hooked. Oops.

That being said, obviously I don't care if other people choose to smoke or not, but I do know of plenty of people who do seem to see it as their mission in life to get people onto whatever *their* habits are. I used to be petrified of drugs, but then a friend who smoked weed nagged the crap out of me so much, and for so long, that eventually I gave pot a go just to get him to shut the frack up. And then I spent the next 6 years of my life being a hopeless dopehead. Not that I *blame* him, per se, my actions and choices were my own, but I definitely can understand why people bow to 'peer pressure'. Although, in my case, I don't think it was typical 'peer pressure' so much as just, 'If I fricking do this will you shut up and leave me alone?!' I didn't want him to see me as 'cool' or not a loser, I just wanted him to stop going on about it. And I've seen him do the same thing to just about everyone else around him - of course, he's progressed to harder drugs and he's convinced all his previously drug-free friends that there's nothing wrong with pot... then ecstasy... then acid, then speed, then god knows what else they're dropping these days. Suffice it to say I don't talk to him anymore, let alone consider him a friend.
And I know plenty of other people like him - it's like, they do something that they think is awesome and have to try and make everyone else see how great it is. Either that, or he's so miserable being a complete drug-f*** that he has to drag everyone else down with him so he's not alone in his hole.
It's the same with not just drugs and alcohol, but things like video games - my husband and I have bagged out on WoW obsessives for years because we've seen what it's done to our friends - they've quit/lost jobs, turned into total hermits, and spend every waking moment levelling up. Then, my husband went out and bought it, and suddenly all these friends he hasn't talked to for like, two years, are his best buddies again because they all play WoW.
It's sick, in a way.



Umm. I totally forget what my point was.

Emerald Muerte:

Smoking is disgusting, I think it's gradually getting less popular for the current generation because of all the science being revealed to us which is awesome. Knowledge is power I guess. :]

sadly, this does not work here. remember, im in middle school.
we have signs everywhere telling us not to smoke.
and yet, nearly everyone in our school smokes or drinks or does weed.
we do it because for those few minutes or hours afterwards, you feel great. relieved, somehow.
just thought i'd say, it isnt getting less popular. just more popular with younger people.
i smoke, sadly. but the way i see it, who cares? it's my body, i'll screw it up if i want to. i know what's going in my body, i know the risks. I know. but by people telling me it's not good does me no good.
im aware i'll die sooner. but so? we all die, and oldness seems miserable anyways. id almost rather die sooner, so i dont have the last few years of just pain going on.
the only thing i hate is the way i smell. my parents dont smoke, so when i come home, they can tell i was smoking. and i only get in trouble. but im a social smoker. i dont smoke alone, only if there happens to be one there. i smoke like once or twice a week, maybe.
but im never dying to have one. i told myself that if i'm ever in school, or at home, and just desperate for a cigarette, then i need to quit. i tell myself that it can only be a pleasure, not an addiction. and so far, after a year or so, i have never desperately needed one.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with smoking cigarette's. It's your choice, if you want to risk cancer, or other diseases, go ahead.

But if you do it around your children, or in the middle of a busy streets, thats not right. I don't think that smokers should do that, people who drink generally don't force their alcohol down someone else's neck. So smokers shouldn't force their smoke into other people's lungs.

Gerard Wa-HEY!:

You're lucky that you seem to live in a country where drinking is treated as something not to abuse. Unfortunately, in Australia, everybody is brought up in this culture where binge-drinking is not only socially acceptable, it's downright encouraged, and the hell with ill effects (I'm not going to sit here wasting my breath listing them - we all know they exist and that in some cases the bad side to alcohol is more dangerous and more immediate than smoking). Smoking advertisements were banned years ago, and smokers are treated as social pariahs, but every five minutes there's another ad for an alcohol brand on TV, promoting it as this ultimately awesome thing that everybody should love (oh, provided they're over 18, can't be seen to target advertising at kids!!), and seriously, the only real friends you have are the ones you get drunk with (if you don't go out drinking every weekend, you're a boring jerk and nobody wants to know you).
Basically, I look down on drinking so much because I live in a place where it's not treated with respect, and therefore a lot of bad things happen because the privilege of drinking is abused and I guess my real gripe is that, when the media is constantly telling the community how bad alcohol is for them, they ignore it, but still want to sit there decrying smokers as monsters (but, like I said, smoking kills the smoker themself, not innocent bystanders).

...As to your friends 'running around burning each other with cigarettes', are you sure they weren't intoxicated by alcohol at the time? Because that certainly doesn't sound like anything anybody I know would do sober, and trust me, I see a lot more people acting like complete morons when they've been drinking, than when they've been smoking *cigarettes* (naturally, other substances are a different story).

^^ It's funny you say that because in the US alcohol can be advertised anywhere -- television, billboards, magazines, etc., whereas cigarettes can only be advertised in print. It's silly, none of it is any good for you. I do drink but only on occasion, if I'm out with friends I'll have a froo-froo drink or I'll have a glass of wine with a special meal, but I've never binge-drank, and it's nothing to do with advertisers or "looking cool", it's just not something I care to do.

The only filmed tobacco ads are anti-smoking ads, which have started creeping up on our DVDs; especially DVDs marketed to a younger audience (Clerks II and The Dark Knight are the ones I've seen them on most recently, that I can remember) to try and stop smoking. Now they're trying to pass a law that would put a PG rating on any movie that features a character smoking. It could be the greatest kids movie ever but will get slapped with a higher rating if there's a cigarette in it. It's stupid.

vacant3by4-:

I know everyones like, smoking isn't cool, but..

I smoke for 3 reasons;
1. It's something I "shouldn't do", and I'm 15, naturally, I want to do it.
2. It IS cool. How can I look up to my idols, Gerard Way, Frank Iero, Kat Von D, Slash, without being like.. hey, they're smoking and it looks kinda cool.
3. I smoke socially; theres nothing like a good chat and a smoke, or being wasted and having a smoke lol.
4. Its stress relieving. Some of the worst nights of my life I think; god, i could go with a smoke.

I don't think I'll smoke any more when I turn 18. I smoke with friends, at parties, or maybe the odd one with me and a friend when I'm "stressed". I don't see my situation changing. I know the dangers; I'm not stupid. But I can't help but think, drinking fucks your liver up with excessive use, and people don't get on at alcoholics half as much as they get on smokers.
I'm aware that people I am around when I smoke may be offended, if say they have a relative that has died from smoking, and I am NOT insensitive to that, it's just, we don't all stop driving cars cause someone got run over do we?

And i smoke lights so y'know (:

Anyway that's my opinion, anyone wanna talk about it message me.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with everything you just said.

1. So you're smoking because you're not supposed to? There are other ways to rebel that won't affect your health.
2. Gerard and Frank are trying to quit. Since you look up to them, why not quit with them?
3. Only socially? So you can honestly say that you've never had a ciggarette by yourself?
4. It is not stress relief. This leads me onto your next statement, how you're going to quit. Cigarettes conatin Nicotine. Nicotine is addicitve. I bet you the first time you had a cigarette, it wasn't stress relieving. But becuase your body has become addicted to the nicotine, your body starts to go into withdrawl when you don't have it. Therefore, when you finally do take a puff, it feels like stress relief.
Since your addicted, it isn't going to be easy to quit. You might think that you can stop just like that, but sorry, it doesn't work like that. It will take hard work.

You say you know the dangers, yet you claim you aren't stupid. Personally, I think you're contradicting yourself. However, that is just my opinion.

Yes, excessive amounts of alcohol can affect your liver. So what? What has that got to do with smoking? Just because something else doesn't have enough attention doesn't take away the health risks of what you are doing.

And people being offended about you smoking around them. If someone just lit up right by me I'd be offended too. Not because of the death of relatives, but because I would not like to talk to someone as their cigarette smoke makes its way to my lungs. Second hand smoke is extremely bad for your health too, and I would either ask the person to put the Cigarette out or tell them that I'll be right back and wait for them to finish.

I respect your opinion and habits, but I disagree completely to be honest.

When you're in the fire dept you have to do something.

People go in hating smoking and never touched a drink.
1 or 2 years later they smoke half a pack a day and get drunk whenever they arent working or volunteering.

It's a stress relief thing. Sure, we have the Critical Incident Stress Teams and such, but, they just don't do it.

The fire dept is great until you have your first dead kid.
Sure. We could quit, which some people say to do.
But then, who would do it?

We had a fatal wreck that killed a 19 year old girl 2 days before Christmas. When I go by that spot, I see her car there. When i
'm in a store and I see the coat she was wearing I see her face, or matted blood in the fur. I saw her facebook, and instead of how she was in the picture, I saw her face as it was at the accident.
I had dreams for a week. Going to the firehouse, going to the call, getting to the call, etc.
One of the guys dreamed that he was talking to her on the street and after a couple of minutes she just dropped dead in front of him.

As much talking as we do to each other, it's never enough for what you experience.

If anybody watches Rescue Me, when the guy sees the people that died, thats not all too far from reality.

I think its gross and wouldn't do it but its a better way to relieve stress than say, cutting.

I don't really have a problem with it as long as i don't have to breathe the second-hand smoke, and as long as no one else does either.

BTW my city has 100% banned smoking in public restaurants and bars, what does everyone think of this? I support it because i dont think ppl should be forced to breath the smoke and rist their health.

EeVie !:

I think its gross and wouldn't do it but its a better way to relieve stress than say, cutting.

I don't really have a problem with it as long as i don't have to breathe the second-hand smoke, and as long as no one else does either.

BTW my city has 100% banned smoking in public restaurants and bars, what does everyone think of this? I support it because i dont think ppl should be forced to breath the smoke and rist their health.

I think it should be the owner of the establishment that should be making that decision. If the owner wants to allow smoking then so be it, the non-smokers have to deal with it because if that person owns it, then they make the rules.. If he/she doesn't want to allow smoking then the smokers will have to deal with it.

I don't smoke but I agree with S713. There is one restaurant in all of Kissimmee/Orlando that still allows smoking, because it's a British pub. I don't smoke, I don't like to be in a small enclosed room with smokers, so I go somewhere else. No harm, no foul. And people who smoke know that if they want to smoke with their meal, that's where to go. Everyone is happy and there's no bickering.

^ I wish it was like that in Australia. Unfortunately, it's just a massive blanket ban because the government has to look like they're doing something productive about smoking, but they like the tax revenue they collect too much to outlaw it.. so they just make our lives difficult and it fools idiots into thinking they actually care about our health.
My husband and I flat-out just don't go out anymore. If we want dinner, we pick up Thai takeaway and eat it in front of the TV. If we want to drink, we have a couple of friends over for some beer and burgers. It saves us money, sure, but it's a pain in the ass having your social life essentially in a coma because of some dumb rule that shouldn't have to apply to everyone. As you guys said, bans like that should be at the discretion of the establishment's owner - when smoking bans were first brought in, bars and pubs were dying on their ass within months because smokers (who are the main source of income when it comes to alcohol) just stopped going out.

It's so bad here that you can't even take your drink into the smoking area with you - the legislation introduced states 'smoking is banned in any public area that serves food OR beverages', so now you have to either finish your drink, or leave it sitting on the table while you go outside to drink... and I'm sure smokers agree that when you're on a night out, you must have a drink to wash down the ciggies!

I often smoke. It sounds stupidly but i smoke only at school, near the building or in toilet when teachers can notice me. i do it only for adrenaline i think... i know that smoking isn't a good thing but i can't make myself give up these stupid games. perhaps if i enter the university i stop))))