What;s wrong with kids these days?
- Thread starter Asktoro
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Mopar to ya
Well-Known Member
I smoked to be cool as well. We had a smoking area in the school where we could smoke. I quit just before I got engaged. Cigarettes had just gone to .85 for Marlboro reds and I was appalled by how expensive that was. I can't even begin to imagine $5 a pack. Holy crap! I wish I never started but have been smoke free for 24 years.
Try almost 7 bucks here in MI.
6-7 bucks here too in Montana. At least American spirit. Has less gnarly crap in it or so the box says either way its still smoking and I -need- to quit, which I'm working on. When days are slow, those are the WORST.
shadango
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You're right....there is no easy answer to this but mainly it centers around big money when we talk about booze and and smoking.
And the fact that some businesses have made their livings off of booze and nicotine shouldnt disguise the issue.
There are plenty of businesses that make money off of illegal activity in some way shape or form and they are gone after no holds barred.
Just because smoking has been accepted til now doesnt mean it cant and should not be UN-accepted.
Both are addictions and both are substances that man is perfectly biologically able to live without until he becomes addicted to them.
Yet they have been socially acceptable for so long we have lost sight that they are (potentially) deadly poisons we artificially introduce into our bodies.....sometimes killing us slowly....and we pay the makers of the stuff for the priveledge. That plus the gubment maling tons of $$$$ on it.
We sure always defer back to the natural state of man when the "rights" of people are considered.
Yes, you have the right to kill yourself by tobacco or alcohol.
But seeing as the natural state of the average human is to breath fresh air and not filth (at least not on purpose) and drink water and fluids that DONT rot ya from the inside out, why should the smokers/drinkers "right" to use them trump my right to NOT be subjected to any of the risks?
I dont have a problem with smoking in bars. Get the two substances together and that way you thin the herd even quicker....LOL
But at a concert or a family event I shouldnt have to sit next to some couple smoking like goddamn freight trains for 2 hours straight.
Sure I could ask nicely for them to move. Or I could move (and find alother nice couple smoking like trains).
Much easier to say that since smoking is an addictive substance and one that will kill you, it should be illegal.
No, there arent people shooting up ****** at a fireworks event or while standing on the street corner waiting for a bus......and there is a reason....it is ILLEGAL. Sure, people still do it.....in private, where it doesnt affect ME.
I am not a fan of regulating more and more either.
It would be nice if everyone could just think of others FIRST before lighting up or driving after drinking......but the addictions are so strong, courtesy goes out the window.
So what do you do? Should non-smokers just ahve to deal with it until the smokers either die off as a sub-culture or they themselves die?
That isnt right either.
shadango
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Holy CRAP!
So the pack-a-day guys are paying $210 a month in cigarrattes? Thats a chunk of change to see go up in smoke!
I am too cheap a bastard to smoke (thank God!) LOL :angel9:
ESP47
Well-Known Member
Addictions are a funny thing. People that are addicted try and justify their addiction any way possible. The fact of the matter is that its your body and your mind and you can control it whatever way you want. If you want to quit and can't...its not the addiction, it's your will power. You don't actually want to quit, it's just wishful thinking on your part. If something isn't easy, people give in and just accept it as being something that is too hard for them to do.
There are less kids smoking these days than in years past, so the title of this thread is *** backwards.
As far as smoking in bars, I'm in 100% agreement with the ban. When smoking, you bother every around you that isn't a smoker. In fact, you can completely ruin their night without even knowing it. You can have a few beers and not bother a soul so they aren't even comparable. I've had plenty of outings ruined by people smoking around me. Smokers usually have no respect for the people around them. They don't remember how horrible it was riding in the car as kids while their parents were smoking. Having a sore throat all the time because you couldn't get away from it.
If a law came out banning it from everywhere other than designated areas, I'd vote for it in a second.
There are less kids smoking these days than in years past, so the title of this thread is *** backwards.
As far as smoking in bars, I'm in 100% agreement with the ban. When smoking, you bother every around you that isn't a smoker. In fact, you can completely ruin their night without even knowing it. You can have a few beers and not bother a soul so they aren't even comparable. I've had plenty of outings ruined by people smoking around me. Smokers usually have no respect for the people around them. They don't remember how horrible it was riding in the car as kids while their parents were smoking. Having a sore throat all the time because you couldn't get away from it.
If a law came out banning it from everywhere other than designated areas, I'd vote for it in a second.
slantsixdan
=..=
Addiction has nothing to do with reason. If it did, then smokers -- the overwhelming majority of which want to quit -- would simply go "I'm going to throw these away right now and never smoke another one" and that would be that. A (very) few people manage to do that, but most would-be quitters fail again and again and again. It is a large error to blame the smoker. Tobacco is the profiteer marketer's wet-dream product: using it does nothing but make the user need more. Okeh, yes, with what we've officially known since 1964 (and suspected since long before then, and common-sensed since forever) it can only be called a thoughtless poor decision to start smoking. But we all make thoughtless poor decisions, and blaming (humiliating, shaming, mocking, scolding) smokers on top of the awful consequences they're already burdened with by that one bad decision not only doesn't accomplish anything, it also points the blame in the wrong direction.
Y'want to kill for money? Choose your murder weapon carefully. Take a look at the tobacco industry's "They got lips, we want 'em!" attitude towards kids. Now guess which is more deadly, which kills more people: HIV/AIDS or smoking. If you guessed HIV/AIDS, you're wrong, it's smoking.
Tobacco addiction is grievously sad. It is also largely preventable, which makes it much more infuriating. Regulation, schmegulation; it is astounding to me that we still let these monsters sell slavery, addictive misery and agonizing death. That we allow it in the name of "freedom" is positively orwellian. If you go out and set a trap for an animal, put something tempting in it as bait to make the animal think it's choosing to consume something pleasurable and of no negative consequence and maybe even of some benefit, and it works and you catch it and slowly, painfully kill the animal, you get slapped with a fine. If you're a tobacco company and you do the same thing -- entrap, imprison, and painfully kill twelve hundred people a day (in the U.S. alone) -- and you make them pay for the privilege, then that's "freedom of choice" and the "free market" and "adult decisions" and blah blah blahbitty blah blah. Ask a smoker how much choice he has to smoke the next cigarette. Go on, I dare you, go find a smoker who has to go outside and fix his addiction twenty to forty times a day, whether it's 30 below zero and snowing or 130 in the blazing sun, and ask him why he "chooses" to smoke. Why do you "choose" to eat and drink every day? Sure, food and water really are essential to survival and nicotine isn't, but fact is, using tobacco alters the brain so it treats nicotine as essential to survival, the same as food and water.
(Or, with a different spin on it: Kill someone with a gun and you get locked up or lethally injected for it. Kill millions of people with cigarettes, and you get paid and subsidized and tax-abated for it, and you get to be the poster child for "freedom".)
No, the smoker's the wrong target for the disgust and disdain, which belongs squarely targeted at the tobacco companies and the ineffective "regulators". It's a legal product? Yes, and by any reasonable standard it shouldn't be. We've kicked off the market every other product that kills and maims even a fraction of the number of people killed and maimed by tobacco. A food item or a prescription drug or a lawn mower or a toaster oven that caused even one ten-thousandth of the gory carnage caused by tobacco would be off the market yesterday. It utterly gobsmacks me that we allow the sale of such a hideously dangerous, addictive product right on the open market, with advertising and brand competition and everything, subject only to the crudest, laxest, and most easily circumvented restriction of all products meant to be taken internally -- all ya gotta be is 18, and ya can't smoke in public places -- and we do it in the name of freedom and on putative principle of free-market capitalism. It is perversity. It is tragic. It is not a "freedom", it is not a "habit", it is not a "pastime", it is not a "pleasure", not a "choice to enjoy", it is a viciously addictive and deadly drug, full stop. Most of its users ingest it in the most damaging possible way, full stop. It's still legal because people are still addicted because it's still legal because people are addicted because it's legal. It is past time for tobacco to be made subject to much, much stricter legal regulation as to content and restriction as to availability and commerce. For current addicts to be serviced with inexpensive and easily available, thoughtfully-researched and -developed nicotine pills or other standardised relatively safe delivery modes -- we know this is possible; the tobacco industry knows how to make them -- and thus to break the continuity of the addiction trap at the societal level.
Logistically it wouldn't be too difficult: next year the age rises to 19, then to 20, then to 21, then to 22, etc., year by year until nicotine products are available only by prescription (there are certain mental illness conditions that are effectively relieved only by nicotine). Even with lavish expenditure on 100% subsidy of such nicotine doses and all kinds of cessation programs and assistance programs, it would still have to cost a tiny fraction of what we all lose to tobacco's wreckage (and that's only counting the dollars what's a mother worth? A father, a grandfather, an aunt, a son, a brother, a sister?).
You say it won't work because Prohibition failed? I say your analogy's faulty. When Canada tried heavy taxation, smoking dropped way off briefly. Then the tobacco companies began smuggling enormous quantities of cigarettes over the border via indian reservations, smoking rates went back up, the tobacco companies successfully quashed the tax because "it's not working", and simultaneously defrauded the Canadian government of enormous tax revenues. That's the same reason Prohibition failed: the effort was taking place on only one side of the border. Sure, there'll always be die-hards and smugglers and black-marketeers, but thoughtful implementation determines whether they win or lose on the larger scale. Consider: in the early days of unleaded gasoline, there was a big problem with people shoving a chopstick or pen down the fill pipe of their new unleaded-fuel cars to open the flap door and fill up with leaded regular, because it was cheaper. This threatened to spoil the pollution-reduction effort; the solution was obvious and easy: tax rates were adjusted slightly so unleaded was the same price or a few cents cheaper than leaded. Easy.
I struggle to mind that there is less than zero effect of any amount of frantically wishing my friends and loved ones who smoke would start to stop now and keep trying and trying and trying, making it first priority until they succeed. I empathise with them. Addiction has nothing to do with reason; if it did, then it'd be a simple matter of "Smoking is going to cripple and/or kill me slowly, expensively, and agonisingly; I'm going to stop right this instant". It's not, and that's why I am so furious at the tobacco industry and the almost entirely free pass they get for their ongoing mass murder.
Y'want to kill for money? Choose your murder weapon carefully. Take a look at the tobacco industry's "They got lips, we want 'em!" attitude towards kids. Now guess which is more deadly, which kills more people: HIV/AIDS or smoking. If you guessed HIV/AIDS, you're wrong, it's smoking.
Tobacco addiction is grievously sad. It is also largely preventable, which makes it much more infuriating. Regulation, schmegulation; it is astounding to me that we still let these monsters sell slavery, addictive misery and agonizing death. That we allow it in the name of "freedom" is positively orwellian. If you go out and set a trap for an animal, put something tempting in it as bait to make the animal think it's choosing to consume something pleasurable and of no negative consequence and maybe even of some benefit, and it works and you catch it and slowly, painfully kill the animal, you get slapped with a fine. If you're a tobacco company and you do the same thing -- entrap, imprison, and painfully kill twelve hundred people a day (in the U.S. alone) -- and you make them pay for the privilege, then that's "freedom of choice" and the "free market" and "adult decisions" and blah blah blahbitty blah blah. Ask a smoker how much choice he has to smoke the next cigarette. Go on, I dare you, go find a smoker who has to go outside and fix his addiction twenty to forty times a day, whether it's 30 below zero and snowing or 130 in the blazing sun, and ask him why he "chooses" to smoke. Why do you "choose" to eat and drink every day? Sure, food and water really are essential to survival and nicotine isn't, but fact is, using tobacco alters the brain so it treats nicotine as essential to survival, the same as food and water.
(Or, with a different spin on it: Kill someone with a gun and you get locked up or lethally injected for it. Kill millions of people with cigarettes, and you get paid and subsidized and tax-abated for it, and you get to be the poster child for "freedom".)
No, the smoker's the wrong target for the disgust and disdain, which belongs squarely targeted at the tobacco companies and the ineffective "regulators". It's a legal product? Yes, and by any reasonable standard it shouldn't be. We've kicked off the market every other product that kills and maims even a fraction of the number of people killed and maimed by tobacco. A food item or a prescription drug or a lawn mower or a toaster oven that caused even one ten-thousandth of the gory carnage caused by tobacco would be off the market yesterday. It utterly gobsmacks me that we allow the sale of such a hideously dangerous, addictive product right on the open market, with advertising and brand competition and everything, subject only to the crudest, laxest, and most easily circumvented restriction of all products meant to be taken internally -- all ya gotta be is 18, and ya can't smoke in public places -- and we do it in the name of freedom and on putative principle of free-market capitalism. It is perversity. It is tragic. It is not a "freedom", it is not a "habit", it is not a "pastime", it is not a "pleasure", not a "choice to enjoy", it is a viciously addictive and deadly drug, full stop. Most of its users ingest it in the most damaging possible way, full stop. It's still legal because people are still addicted because it's still legal because people are addicted because it's legal. It is past time for tobacco to be made subject to much, much stricter legal regulation as to content and restriction as to availability and commerce. For current addicts to be serviced with inexpensive and easily available, thoughtfully-researched and -developed nicotine pills or other standardised relatively safe delivery modes -- we know this is possible; the tobacco industry knows how to make them -- and thus to break the continuity of the addiction trap at the societal level.
Logistically it wouldn't be too difficult: next year the age rises to 19, then to 20, then to 21, then to 22, etc., year by year until nicotine products are available only by prescription (there are certain mental illness conditions that are effectively relieved only by nicotine). Even with lavish expenditure on 100% subsidy of such nicotine doses and all kinds of cessation programs and assistance programs, it would still have to cost a tiny fraction of what we all lose to tobacco's wreckage (and that's only counting the dollars what's a mother worth? A father, a grandfather, an aunt, a son, a brother, a sister?).
You say it won't work because Prohibition failed? I say your analogy's faulty. When Canada tried heavy taxation, smoking dropped way off briefly. Then the tobacco companies began smuggling enormous quantities of cigarettes over the border via indian reservations, smoking rates went back up, the tobacco companies successfully quashed the tax because "it's not working", and simultaneously defrauded the Canadian government of enormous tax revenues. That's the same reason Prohibition failed: the effort was taking place on only one side of the border. Sure, there'll always be die-hards and smugglers and black-marketeers, but thoughtful implementation determines whether they win or lose on the larger scale. Consider: in the early days of unleaded gasoline, there was a big problem with people shoving a chopstick or pen down the fill pipe of their new unleaded-fuel cars to open the flap door and fill up with leaded regular, because it was cheaper. This threatened to spoil the pollution-reduction effort; the solution was obvious and easy: tax rates were adjusted slightly so unleaded was the same price or a few cents cheaper than leaded. Easy.
I struggle to mind that there is less than zero effect of any amount of frantically wishing my friends and loved ones who smoke would start to stop now and keep trying and trying and trying, making it first priority until they succeed. I empathise with them. Addiction has nothing to do with reason; if it did, then it'd be a simple matter of "Smoking is going to cripple and/or kill me slowly, expensively, and agonisingly; I'm going to stop right this instant". It's not, and that's why I am so furious at the tobacco industry and the almost entirely free pass they get for their ongoing mass murder.
rp23g7
Well-Known Member
I dont understand smoking either, especially these days, with all the knowledge we have, but i can also understand people and their habits etc.
i have been working out for 27 yrs, and i feel like a grumpy guy if i miss a few days, its like my drug. I tried one cigarette in my life, i made it through high school without smoking, and finally tried one a few yrs later, i didnt get it, i smoked the whole thing and it just made me dizzy, and it tasted gross. For you guys that have been smoking a long time, what does it actually do for you? calm you down etc, or is it just something to do now?
i have been working out for 27 yrs, and i feel like a grumpy guy if i miss a few days, its like my drug. I tried one cigarette in my life, i made it through high school without smoking, and finally tried one a few yrs later, i didnt get it, i smoked the whole thing and it just made me dizzy, and it tasted gross. For you guys that have been smoking a long time, what does it actually do for you? calm you down etc, or is it just something to do now?
[sarc]I see you have a '72 'cuda. No catalytic converters, and most likely a dirty 'ole carburetor. How about voluntarily throwing some cats and EFI on that old polluter so you can keep the air clean for everyone around you.
Remember, you can't wash the filth out of your lungs... :toothy10:[/sarc]
George R
Mopar Nutcase
I don't want you or the government to dictate to me what I can or can't do, whether it be smoking a cigarette or anything else.Good for you! You may have helped that kid take a step toward kicking a filthy habit.
(rant mode ON)rotest:
For anyone who still smokes in this day and age, with all the medical documentation of how bad smoking is for you, I have to ask......"Why?"
If its JUST addiction, well there are cures for that these days if one wants it bad enough.
I watched my old man "try" to quit smoking and he always found excuses to go back.
It can be done.
Just don't make the purchase to begin with.
Just like dealing with obesity -- if the Twinkies aren't in the house, its much harder to eat one.
My grandmother smoked like a train (they tell me) up until age 40 or so. One day she quit cold turkey. Never picked up a cancer stick again and she died at age 89 from a heart attack.....but clean as a fiddle, cancer wise. And she quit back in the 60s when it was still "cool" and accepted widely.
I still cant understand how smoking ever got to be "cool" in the first place.
Its expensive, it stinks when you are doing it, it makes both your breath and your body stink, it makes your teeth look like something out of a bad horror movie, it has been proven to kill you and its just a vile disgusting habit.
And while I aam ranting...LOL.....
Smokers -- please dont assume your smoking problem should be my problem.
Its ok to throw your slobber-covered butt into my yard or street for me to have to deal with but if I toss a scraps of paper out the window of my car I can get fined $500. Go figure.
And when I am outside trying to enjoy the fresh air the last damn thing I need is to take a nice deep breath of "fresh" air only to find that instead I get lung full of putrid smoke that you have exhaled.
Yuck.
And ladies.....it makes you look terrible!
There will be times when I see a good looking lady...cute face, pretty eyes, nice body... and then she pulls out a cigarette and sticks it in her face. It just hangs there, smoldering. Instant turn off. Blech. Like kissing a toilet.
The saddest part, like you said, is with the kids. They dont know any better. They see the adults they look up to doing it and imitate.
I pray I can keep my two boys (both under 12) off of them.....we try and point out how nasty it is without necessarily forbidding them (because we all know how well forbidding a kid to do anything works...LOL)
Its legalized drug use and the only reason it hasn't been completely banned everywhere is because big tobacco has greased the right palms.
We have a government that preaches about drug use and then they collect taxes on nicotine and alcohol.
People can smoke in public...spewing filth into the air others breath, giving no choice to those who do not want to ....littering our sidewalks and adding to the healthcare crisis slowly but surely.
Yet they arrest pee wee herman for waxing his knob in a dark movie theatrer...which hurts no one but its illegal because its "immoral".
Go figure. LOL
Ok....rant mode off....LOL
Not looking to offend any smokers here...I know it an addiction. But take charge of your life and DO something about it....there will always be "a reason to smoke." But look at all the reasons NOT to.
Asktoro, you have only been smoking for 3 years.......it will be much easier to quit now than in 5 or 10 or 30 years, and by that point the damage will have been done. You have the chance NOW to quit.
DO IT! Spend the money you would have spent on cigarettes on car parts.....
You preach about banning them, well why not ban beer or hard booze? How about chewing gum? Coffee? Yeah, lets regulate everything people make a decision to do, this way we'll be one step closer to a Police State...which is where we're headed.
I don't throw butts out the car window anymore. I did years ago, but now I knock the heads off and throw them out when I get home. I don't expect anyone else to do it, though, and I don't cry like a little ***** when someone else does it.
If we're out in PUBLIC and you don't like the smell of the cigarette I'm smoking, then MOVE.
kaytbugsdad
Well-Known Member
I smoked from the time i was 15 (1984) til I quit in 1998....... Glad I quit when I did!!! I don't see how people can afford to smoke with the price they charge for a carton of cigarettes..... $50 for a carton!!!!!
LH23H2R
Well-Known Member
Not to marginalise nor compartmentalise the opinions of other members here , but Slant Six Dan has proposed the finest example of a well-thought and sensible approach to the elimination of tobacco .
Do I enjoy smoking ? Yes , half the time , I certainly do .
At work it helps me relax ; after a meal , it's complimentary ; with a coffee drink , it's heavenly ; and with a good , strong Stout , it's blissful .
Then , there are the other times where it's like 'god damn ... I don't really want one right now , but my brain is telling me to !! '
On my days off from work , when I'm at home , I hardly smoke at all ; maybe 2 -3 cigs over a 12 hour course of being awake .
However , when I go socialise , I start burnin' through 'em again :twisted: .
So , I've come to realise that I am addicted to tobacco , psychologically and physiologically .
And , in support of Dan's ideal that tobacco / nicotine is helpful in certain cases of mental illness , I wish to add :
nicotine also breaks-down monoamine oxidase , which is the "street sweeper" of certain brain chemicals .
Do I enjoy smoking ? Yes , half the time , I certainly do .
At work it helps me relax ; after a meal , it's complimentary ; with a coffee drink , it's heavenly ; and with a good , strong Stout , it's blissful .
Then , there are the other times where it's like 'god damn ... I don't really want one right now , but my brain is telling me to !! '
On my days off from work , when I'm at home , I hardly smoke at all ; maybe 2 -3 cigs over a 12 hour course of being awake .
However , when I go socialise , I start burnin' through 'em again :twisted: .
So , I've come to realise that I am addicted to tobacco , psychologically and physiologically .
And , in support of Dan's ideal that tobacco / nicotine is helpful in certain cases of mental illness , I wish to add :
nicotine also breaks-down monoamine oxidase , which is the "street sweeper" of certain brain chemicals .
slantsixdan
=..=
Sometimes it's fun to revert to spazzed-out-six-year-old temper tantrum kinds of behavior like this -- NO! I DON'T WANNA! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT! -- but just for kicks, let's put our grownup thinking caps on (have you got one?) and consider your position. Chewing gum, coffee, beer, and hard booze are on the very long list of things which, when thoughtfully used as intended, do not kill or maim the user. Tobacco's not on that list because when used as intended, it kills half its users and maims and disfigures many of the other half, similarly (but to a greater degree) than yesterdays' lawnmowers and power saws and kids' bicycles and automobiles.
But let's roll with your idea for a few moments: Government shouldn't ban anything. So no ban on leaded gasoline -- the kids will have diminished intelligence and ability to learn and they'll have serious, criminal behavioral problems later on, but that's a worthwhile price to pay for getting rid of government interference, right? And while we're on the subject, no ban on companies dumping mercury and other toxic crap into the land, air, and water. Don't like drinking poisonous water or breathing filthy air? Too bad.
Cars! No auto safety regulations because the glorious free market is successful at deciding that people didn't actually want to be impaled on steering shafts and torn in half by flying shards of non-safety glass and pulped on ejection through the windshield. Note how well Chrysler's new-for-1964 door latches worked (not) to prevent the doors flying open in a crash:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siT-SIfOnQw"]‪1960s Crash Tests‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]
I see a lot of very dead and very maimed people when I view that video, but the big, bad government shouldn't have stepped in and stuck its big do-gooder nose into the private lives of drivers and passengers. Or maybe you think they should've just stopped after putting forth basic common-sense safety regulations like requiring seat belts in every car and that kind of thing? Well, here's what happens when a '78 Plymouth -- with seat belts, collapsible steering column, side-impact door beams and the whole rest of the list of basic safety equipment mandated by '78 hits a barrier at 65mph (the really revealing views start at about 0:50):
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVqxxIqu5TU"]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]
And here's what happens when the Chinese built a car just a few years ago for sale to the general public without any pesky government interference:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbe5ILICT4M"]‪New Chinese Car Crash Test Disaster - 2007 Brilliance BS6‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]
No health codes! That's nanny-state interference with private lives and free markets! The free market will decide if you really want to eat at a restaurant, swim at a pool, shop at a grocery, or work at a workplace without fear of contracting dread diseases. And they call them "engineering standards" for things like roads and bridges and airplanes and power lines, but they amount to BANS on roads and bridges and planes and power lines that don't happen to meet nanny-state big-government intrusive "standards", the same way closing tax loopholes for billionnaires amount to "job-killing tax increases".
Y'know, lemme tell you a little about my day last Friday. I woke to my alarm clock, powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the local water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to an FCC-regulated channel to see what the National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather will be, using satellites designed, built, and launched into orbit by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast, which has been inspected for safety by the US Department of Agriculture and took my medicine, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration certified automobile, and set out to work on the roads designed and built by the local, state, and national Departments of Transportation, stopping to purchase fuel at a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, at a pump certified by the local Bureau of Weights and Measures to have dispensed what it says it did, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I dropped my mail in the outbox for the US Postal Service, which can deliver a note anywhere in the country in less than a week, and dropped my kids off at the local public school.
After work, I drove my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which had not burned down in my absence because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal's inspection, and which had not been vandalized or plundered of its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then logged onto the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and griped on freerepublic.com about how "socialism" is bad because the government can't do anything right. That's what my Friday looked like how 'bout yours?
nuttyprof
Well-Known Member
I quit smoking when they hit the astronomical price of $.50 per pack,but I do remember the compulsion to light up. Addiction is addiction but very few were forced to start. No matter how addictive they are you chose to light up the first time. Yes the tobacco companys are to blame when they jack up the nicotine levels, and tobacco should be regulated just like anything else you put in your body. (no known injurious material, but what would be left in that paper tube?)
LXguy
Well-Known Member
Your argument jumps the shark right about here. With smoking banned in just about all public places, banning cigarettes basically only keeps people from hurting themselves. As you said, tobacco is hurting its users. And as you said, no user with basic literacy or common sense has any excuse for believing that the cigarettes aren't incredibly dangerous. For that reason, banning cigarettes is not even remotely the same thing as unsafe cars, or environmental poisoning or your other examples.
Where does that slippery slope lead? By that rationale, shouldn't we ban drag racing? skydiving? 4-wheelers? Tattoos? Guns? (talk about a product that's dangerous when used as intended!) Old cars? Forks? Ladders?
I do believe the government has a responsibility and jurisdiction to warn people "Hey, that's going to kill you if you keep it up." but if they're not harming anyone else, then the power of the state ends right there.
You can go on about the cost of medical care for smokers and all of that (even though they generate hella lotta tax revenue), but where does it balance against the cost of the police and the prisons and covert military actions and the zillions of hours of $$$ time wasted by the legal system to put said users in said prisons, and the havoc wreaked by the other criminals that the system no longer has the time or capacity to prosecute or punish. Then there's the empowerment and enrichment of dealers with a new, previously legal product to sell, and the difficult to quantify cost of the erosion of civil rights in the name of fighting the war on drugs. To say nothing of the kids killed in drive-by crossfire or Marine war heroes killed in no-knock raids when the police got the apartment number wrong.
Every time we try banning things people want to do to themselves, we end up costing ourselves a lot of money, throwing good people away in prisons and enriching a typically violent criminal class that then corrupts our legal and political system with their ill-gotten gains.
Compare the NHTSA and EPA results with the National Office of Drug Control Policy, and see what it looks like.
Even though there are record numbers of cars on the roads, highway deaths are at an all-time low, ditto pollution generated per gallon of fuel. Fuel consumption isn't at an all-time low, but 500 hp supercars get the same mileage as 70s gas-sippers.
However, the War on Drugs has given us crack, meth, an undeclared war in Columbia, the highest prison population of any country on Earth, a hopelessly clogged legal system, and we've got a worse drug problem than we started with. EDIT: Oh, and we're out a trillion dollars for our efforts.
Meanwhile, through education and heavy taxation, smoking has declined massively in the past thirty years, while generating billions in tax revenue. EDIT: And by massively, I mean by 50%!!
i smoked as a teen when I joined the Army, but quit shortly after. Neither my wife or any of my kids smoke. I remember my teachers smoking in the classroom!!! can you imagine that happening now!?!?
MoparDart68
Well-Known Member
subscribed
Dartnut
Don't hate me because i'm beautiful
Just a few thoughts to ponder here.....
I am a smoker, and here in Canada i pay $9.65 for a pack of 25 cigarettes, and i smoke an average of about 20 a day. I know it's not good for me and others around me, but i am an addict and that's what i do to ''fix'' my need to smoke.
No one else in my family smokes or ever has.
I had an argument with my brother about it and he forms the same general opinion as the never have smoked people out there and simply states ''just quit now, it's can't be that hard, you don't need it to live anyway, i don't need it and never have. It's just a stupid, expensive,stinky, socially unacceptable habit that will kill you.''
I told him he's right, except for understanding the addiction part of it.
He said b.s. to that.
I said ok, if he gives up his addiction for one year, then i'll give up mine.
His addiction is cars and racing. He has a pretty hot street car that runs in the high 10's in the quarter. He races it about 4 times a year, and really enjoys it. And if he isn't tinkering on it or driving it, he's watching car races on t.v. or reading magazines etc. you all know the drill.
I told him that it was a fair comparison to my addiction to smoking (from an addiction standpoint) to his addiction to cars and motorsports.
I told him go ahead, quit cars cold turkey and what i mean by that, is don't even look at a car magazine, don't watch any motorsports on t.v., don't service your own daily driver, don't work on anyone else's vehicles, let alone go to any car races or car shows for one full year. Do not even think about the subject. Cold turkey.
He said it's not the same as smoking.
I said to him well, it's a matter on your perspective. I know of a lot of people out there that think driving older cars is wrecking the planet with their pollution, let alone being noisy, unsafe (comparing to today's standards), and racing only promotes the further destruction of the planet as well as encouraging the younger generation to be irresponsible in their decisions for what's right for the community, as well as socially unacceptable in this modern age.
I also said he's right, it's not the same as smoking, but if you really look at it, it's an addiction and that's how it works.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
So, ''never have'' smokers, is this a fair comparison to addiction or am i way off base on this one?
BTW, i have read that years ago in the first world war the soldiers were encouraged to smoke because it ''made you brave''.
And smoking is still legal because the government makes a lot of money in tax revenues, they promote non smoking, but they sure don't turn down the 50%-70% taxes they collect on a pack of smokes do they? They also have no 100% PROOF that smoking WILL KILL YOU.
There are a lot of worse things in life than smoking, but i think it's in the top ten!
I wish i didn't smoke, it enslaves you. I do not promote smoking at all, but i am addicted to it and will stop smoking some time in the future, but i tell you all, you never quit addictions, you just stop. The addiction will always be there even if you are not active in it.
Just my own humble opinion,
Tom.
I am a smoker, and here in Canada i pay $9.65 for a pack of 25 cigarettes, and i smoke an average of about 20 a day. I know it's not good for me and others around me, but i am an addict and that's what i do to ''fix'' my need to smoke.
No one else in my family smokes or ever has.
I had an argument with my brother about it and he forms the same general opinion as the never have smoked people out there and simply states ''just quit now, it's can't be that hard, you don't need it to live anyway, i don't need it and never have. It's just a stupid, expensive,stinky, socially unacceptable habit that will kill you.''
I told him he's right, except for understanding the addiction part of it.
He said b.s. to that.
I said ok, if he gives up his addiction for one year, then i'll give up mine.
His addiction is cars and racing. He has a pretty hot street car that runs in the high 10's in the quarter. He races it about 4 times a year, and really enjoys it. And if he isn't tinkering on it or driving it, he's watching car races on t.v. or reading magazines etc. you all know the drill.
I told him that it was a fair comparison to my addiction to smoking (from an addiction standpoint) to his addiction to cars and motorsports.
I told him go ahead, quit cars cold turkey and what i mean by that, is don't even look at a car magazine, don't watch any motorsports on t.v., don't service your own daily driver, don't work on anyone else's vehicles, let alone go to any car races or car shows for one full year. Do not even think about the subject. Cold turkey.
He said it's not the same as smoking.
I said to him well, it's a matter on your perspective. I know of a lot of people out there that think driving older cars is wrecking the planet with their pollution, let alone being noisy, unsafe (comparing to today's standards), and racing only promotes the further destruction of the planet as well as encouraging the younger generation to be irresponsible in their decisions for what's right for the community, as well as socially unacceptable in this modern age.
I also said he's right, it's not the same as smoking, but if you really look at it, it's an addiction and that's how it works.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
So, ''never have'' smokers, is this a fair comparison to addiction or am i way off base on this one?
BTW, i have read that years ago in the first world war the soldiers were encouraged to smoke because it ''made you brave''.
And smoking is still legal because the government makes a lot of money in tax revenues, they promote non smoking, but they sure don't turn down the 50%-70% taxes they collect on a pack of smokes do they? They also have no 100% PROOF that smoking WILL KILL YOU.
There are a lot of worse things in life than smoking, but i think it's in the top ten!
I wish i didn't smoke, it enslaves you. I do not promote smoking at all, but i am addicted to it and will stop smoking some time in the future, but i tell you all, you never quit addictions, you just stop. The addiction will always be there even if you are not active in it.
Just my own humble opinion,
Tom.
George R
Mopar Nutcase
Thats convoluted thinking. Go take more of your medicine, and drink the Kool-Aid while you're at it.
Obviously you don't feel as though you're smart enough to make your own decisions in life and need Big Brother to make them for you.
Dart_Doctor
Asa style
Ok I started 6 years ago wish I never had .them that never started shut the hell up ... U have no clue how hard it is to quit. I started in jr high ya I was one of the rebels that was bullet proof .. now I know better and ive tried to quit 50 times the gums patches don't work .... now I will smoke in my home in my yard in my car if U don't like it don't come around me
Dart_Doctor
Asa style
To the ones that quit way to go
Wondered if you where going to put your spin on the subject....
You should take neither way.
More qualified than you'll ever been, from the been there done that camp to start.
Your comments show no exp. or intelligence on the matter.
Want and will are 2 different things. This is a basic thing to know and understand. Your writing this shows you know nothing about addiction.
Ditto
The reverse is what I have exp. several times. I've seen cig smokers ticketed for ash. One day riding the motorcycle with my freind, he puts his cig out on the street with a crush. TICKETED! Officer sez, use an ash tray. If you had one, you would not be ticketed today." Can ya beileve that? It's true dispite the unbeileveableness of it.
I cut this one short. You have made your feelings clean on smoking and repeating it only makes you sound like a kid throwing a tanturm. So, with the only words quoted, this is a no brainer.
In the bold; This is a far fetched log of bologna. The pollution you complain about is something of an anouyance at a min. to you, but a complete bag of Chit to complain about once you added the words togther, poluting the air. Between the cars we drive, indusrty, power surply, even the crap rotting in the feilds in compost, smoke from butt's is a amount unworthy to tally. Have you seen the tally of cig butt polutionm on TV?
I thought not.
Although, you have seen it from Cars, planes, buss, industy, fast food service, power plants like coal, oil burning electric plants.
All your doing here is bitching like a baby and spewing non-sense of notion.
Once your addicted to something, you'll be reverseing a few words. You down play addiction like it is a finger nail to be clipped.
Once your addicted to something, at one point in time or another,NOTHING is more IMPORTANT!
The closest I can get for you to understand and hopefuly stop making a fool of your self with these insanly stupid posts that are showing the world just how dumb and unitell. you are is this ridiculous comparo.
Dude, your addiction is;
1. Water
2. Food
Now do without and let me know when your about to cave in. I'll help you brake the addictrion by any means possible just to help cure you of eating or drinking water.
Better yet, the air you breath is a addiction.
This is your addiction , even though it is a stupid one to even type out. But that is your monkey that rides your back.
Now, imagine some asswipe, that knows absoultely nothing about addiction coming on here and spewing the most retarded dumb *** things you almost ever read showing just how unintelligent and moronic they are.
This would be you by the way. Seriously.
There covering your *** too ya know or maybe even someone you know and love.
I have and will continue to put out my smokes on my shoe or rubbed out on the ground where ever I am, however, if theres no place to dispose of them, beileve it or not, I do pocket them. I agree there should be some cooth thinking on what people are doing and how it effects others. But this problem of not caring and lack of cooth is not just a simple thing that is a smokers issue.
It extends to ever one every where on some level. Others opinions will judge the factor and level of intencity.
I (regretably) know a few people that want our cars crush out of exisitance NOW! There a greater offender than smoking, nuke bombs, terrorists. We, the car hobby people must be stopped! In there eyes, it's #1 on there list.
This is there point of view and right. So smokers have rights as well as the real A-holes with chips on there shoulders.
Again, you show no itelligence on the subject. It is not that simple and only a simplemind would boil it down that much in there own favor. The more you type, the stupider you show yourself.
You should absoultely do this;
Be quite, otherwise, when you speak (type it here) you remove all doubt that you are a complete idiot. Look thatword up, just so you know.
It's amazing, you just keep on talking and making little sense on the issue of smoking and the ease of what you think it is to quit.
I know a few that have gone cold turkey on quiting smoking. Myself included.
When you exp. your self on the floor helpless and just waiting until the body stops freaking out crushing you from within on the verge of crying, I say, welcome to the first withdraw feeling that only grows stronger and seriously turns you into a puddle of ****. That would be the first one of many to come and do not stop for years. Though they wean in strength.
I'd love to address the whole moral issue, but it's a waste of my time to argue witha dolt who thinks that theres no difference in a playground and a adult movie house when the word "Public" is incountered.
While children should never be in an adult movie house or other settings, and I know non were present that night, it is still a public place. Pay entrey or not. If anyone can walk in, and don't split hairs on age now, it's public.
Via invite is not. AKA Private party.
I'll question the way you raise your kids real fast since you just opened up a can of worms on yourself by placing so little on the issue, and think it OK for P-Wee to do so in that place.
What are you teaching your kids? Wacking it in a movie house is OK?
Again, shut down the typeing fingers before you do more damage to yourself.
While children should never be in an adult movie house or other settings, and I know non were present that night, it is still a public place. Pay entrey or not. If anyone can walk in, and don't split hairs on age now, it's public.
Via invite is not. AKA Private party.
I'll question the way you raise your kids real fast since you just opened up a can of worms on yourself by placing so little on the issue, and think it OK for P-Wee to do so in that place.
What are you teaching your kids? Wacking it in a movie house is OK?
Again, shut down the typeing fingers before you do more damage to yourself.
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