I Smoke

[Lourens]

I read a lot about anti-smoking and new laws and action groups against smoking and the rest. Well . . .

I smoke. That is what I do. I have very few vices in my life and smoking is one of them. I realize that it might kill me some day and that it might be harmful to those around me. But that is what I do. I know I am addicted to nicotine, so I don’t need anybody to remind me. At least it’s not against the law yet. I try to smoke only outdoors where ever possible or in the company of other smokers. So, if you see me smoking, stay out of my way if you don’t like it. Don’t try to stop me because if I wanted to stop, I would have done so years ago. Don’t lecture me on the evils of smoking because I can write a book on the subject myself. I know all about kissing ashtrays and bad teeth and aging skin not to mention dung lungs. I am working on a pair of disposable lungs right now. It will work in much the same way as contact lenses. You wear them for 50,000 cigarettes or two years, which ever comes first, unclip them and discard and hook up a new set. I am trying to get Philip Morris to sponsor my research but so far they won’t bite.

I move through airports quite often and they have these so called smoking lounges for us smokers. Disgusting little rooms much the same, I imagine, as the gas chambers used by the Nazis. Only here, the occupants themselves provide the noxious vapors. But, if that is what the law requires, I won’t complain. I won’t smoke in the toilets, but after sitting on an aircraft for many hours without nicotine, because that is what the law requires, I want to smoke when I get off. I tried these little nicotine patches before but they are very difficult to light. And the gum makes my throat burn. Thankfully, some beurocrats who smoke themselves and knows what it takes provided a smoking room for us. Recently, I went through an airport on transit. Firstly, I had to walk around looking for the smoking lounge. Already an inconvenience. Then I found it, went inside, found an ashtray in the smog and lit up. Would you believe, a woman nearby asked if I would please blow my smoke in another direction because she doesn’t smoke. I told her as politely as I could: “<deleted> OFF lady. Light up or get out.” The only place I AM allowed to smoke after what felt like a lifetime, and she wants to tell me where to blow my smoke. I know of a few places I would like to blow my smoke.

I already have problems from smoking so don’t give me more. When I go to bed at night, my lungs sort of collapse during the night. It takes me a while to get them pumped up again when I wake up in the morning. This is called coughing, much in the same way that you would fluff out a pillow to get some air in to it. I got used to this time spent coughing. What would I do with that time if I didn’t smoke? Besides, I keep an entire economy running by smoking. There’s the Tabasco people who help to give my food more taste and the lighter manufacturers who provide the flame. The list goes on. And if I stopped smoking, my conscience would kill me. By smoking, I am helping some poor kid get an education. I buy my smokes from the shop that gets it from a distributor, who gets it from the factory who gets their raw product from the farmer. If I stopped smoking now, all of those people will lose money and they won’t be able to send their kids to school anymore. Unfortunately, governments have loaded the prices so much with taxes, that the person who really matters now only gets a fraction of the price. What will this world become!

And that is why I like Thailand so much. Rural Thailand in particular or Unseen Thailand as the new slogan goes. They still care about the smoker. The price of cigarettes are not outrageously high and it’s available everywhere. Need tobacco? Just go to your nearest friendly pharmacy where you can not only buy your supply of cigarettes but also any spirits or beer you desire. Also available at the local shops in the villages are small packets of tobacco with papers to roll your own. (Just like in the old days – but let’s not go into that now.) The stuff is vile to say the least but will do in a pinch. The rice farmers and the few cattle men I know around here smoke only that and won’t even except a proper cigarette. And if you look real close or know where to go, you can buy the “imported” stuff from Cambodia at only a fraction of the price. All the popular brands are available and I have found one that is very close to my usual brand.

Thank you for smoking. You are in good company.

[Jai Dee]

I tried these little nicotine patches before but they are very difficult to light.

I wonder what kind of replies you're gonna get to this topic...

Is this your own work or has it been snipped from somewhere else?

Funny read though...

[Lourens]

My own work. See my Blog: Click Here

[John K]

That is a nice and comment from nicotine. Lourens, I would like to know what you have to say about it.

[The Gentleman Scamp]

"<deleted> OFF lady. Light up or get out.”

Last year I was in England and I saw a weedy looking man from the local church wearing a badge that said... 'YOU SMOKE - I CHOKE'.

So I started smoking again.

[Eric Davis]

"<deleted> OFF lady. Light up or get out.”

Last year I was in England and I saw a weedy looking man from the local church wearing a badge that said... 'YOU SMOKE - I CHOKE'.

So I started smoking again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A rebel without flaws Scamp.

[sbk]

I don't smoke but I grew up in the home of a heavy smoker (2 1/2 packs a day for 30 years). My father is now on oxygen because he has 25% lung capacity left (emphysema). Hey, if you want to smoke, go ahead. It's got nothing to do with me. Just don't light up in my face (and don't worry, I wouldn't go into a smoking room in the airport--how stupid could she be?).

The thing I dislike about some smokers are the ones who light up after their dinner, never mind I am still sitting right next to them eating. I knew a german woman who lit up after her meal, blew the smoke into my face and when I coughed said, "Oh sorry". Then took another puff and blew it a little bit further to the right. Obviously not sorry at all.

Hey, go ahead and smoke, just remember that even tho you can smoke anywhere you want in Thailand a little courtesy goes a long way.

[Mighty Mouse]

I also grew up in a smokers household. From a very early age I hated the smell of cigarettes. Consequently, I have never had a puff of the weed, and never will.

If others want to, or have to smoke, that's fine with me, just so long that they do their very best not to encroach upon my supply of fresh air.

If a sign in a restaurant indicates No Smoking, I expect smokers to obey the sign. Walk outside if you must. There is nothing worse than trying to find your pork chop through the thick haze of tobacco smoke.

If there is no sign in the restaurant, it would be regarded as politeness NOT to light up whilst others in close proximity are eating.

I think the majority of smokers respect the comforts of others, it's the arrogant, couldn't-care-less attitude of a few that causes friction.

[The Gentleman Scamp]

Mighty Mouse was a great show.

In those days my mother smoked.

[mrbojangles]

Does anyone else think there is some "Reverse Phsycology" in this post and that Lourens is actually a non-smoker.

Instead of nagging at smokers, paint a picture of what your life is like with all the negativities.

BTW, I'm a Smoker and that's what it made me think of

Edited November 9, 2005 by mrbojangles

[Lourens]

I won't sink that low . . .

[zaz]

I've always been a "controlled" smoker - I now smoke maybe 3 or 4 Marlboro Lights in a day, less at the weekend or 10 to 15 on a night out!!

I could stop anytime because I'm not addicted. I've stopped in the past but just take it up as a kind of time out of the office or when I'm out it's social thing (stupid really). Smoking just chills me out and relaxes me a little but I know I should just ween myself off it. Dunno which way it'll go when I come to Thiland to live since fags are cheaper there...

Edited November 9, 2005 by zaz

[mrbojangles]

I could stop anytime because I'm not addicted. 

Famous last words, those Zaz It's called denial

[zaz]

I could stop anytime because I'm not addicted. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Famous last words, those Zaz It's called denial

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True!!! The only reason why I think I'm not addicted is that I've been smoking on and off for several years and I've never really smoked more than say 5 or 6 cigs in a day on average. In fact sometimes after I have a cig it feels absolutely disgusting with the taste in my mouth etc. And also I hate that smell of cig smoke on clothes. And I'm conscious of having cig breath - I would hate to have a smokers breath - real bad! Maybe it's the fact that I'm really conscious of the "dirty" aspects of smoking that I don't smoke so much..? Dunno.

Just popping out for one now....

[lomatopo]

I move through airports quite often and they have these so called smoking lounges for us smokers. Disgusting little rooms much the same, I imagine, as the gas chambers used by the Nazis. Only here, the occupants themselves provide the noxious vapors.

In my opinion this an extremely inappropriate anology. You not only enter the smoking lounge of your own accord but you also get to leave it while still alive.

[spog]

I fart.

Where's my own private room to fart in?

Why won't my boss let me take a fart break for 10 minutes, on the hour, every hour?

Why do some idiots complain when I bend over and fart in their face?

I like to enjoy a good fart after a meal.

I don't mind walking around, smelling like old farts. If you don't like it, get out of my way.

Farting makes you look cool, too.

[robitusson]

A good article by George Monbiot from the Guardian newspaper about the impending smoking ban in England and the real dangers the public face.

Will they never stand up to the carmakers and save our lungs?

Air pollution kills many times more people than passive smoking, but Britain has failed even to meet feeble EU standards

George Monbiot

Tuesday November 1, 2005

The Guardian

It was fudged - stupidly and unnecessarily fudged - but at least they tried. The ban on smoking in pubs, though gutted by the prime minister's cowardice, will save some fraction of the bar staff who die every year as a result of passive smoking. The moral case is clear: people are being exposed to a risk for which they have not volunteered. While smokers have an undisputed right to kill themselves, they have no right to kill other people. This case being generally applicable, what does the government intend to do about passive driving?

Article continues

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Every year, according to a paper published by the British Medical Journal, some 54 bar staff in the UK die as a result of their exposure to other people's cigarette smoke. And every year, according to the EU, some 39,000 deaths in this country are caused or hastened by air pollution, most of which comes from vehicles. This is a problem three orders of magnitude greater than the one that has filled the newspapers for the past six months, and no one is talking about it.

It is true to say that our air, like that of most parts of the rich world, is much cleaner than it used to be. Since the great smog of 1952 forced the government to legislate, since coal gave way to gas and factories fitted filters to their chimneys, acute pollution crises of the kind which once killed thousands in a couple of days have not recurred. (Our nostalgia for the London peasouper, like the uproar over the disappearance of the Routemaster bus, betrays one of our national weaknesses: a romantic attachment to pollution.) Between 1992 and 2000, traffic fumes fell steeply. But in 2000 the decline in the most dangerous pollutant - small particles of soot - came to a halt. Since then the levels have held more or less steady (with a spike in the hot summer of 2003). The British government is in breach of European rules, and the European commission is in breach of any serious effort to do something about it. So 39,000 lives are shortened every year.

Surprisingly, passive driving strikes mostly at the heart, not the lungs. The effect is not clearly understood. According to the government's committee on the medical effects of air pollutants, either an inflammation of the lungs makes blood more likely to clot, or the pollutants somehow change the autonomic nervous system's control of the heartbeat. Either way, the committee says, there is a convincing association between "daily average concentrations of a number of classical air pollutants and the number of deaths occurring daily from cardiovascular causes".

While pollution can kill people who are already ill, there is a good deal of argument about the harm it does to healthy people. The committee maintains that "long-term exposure to air pollution is unlikely to be a cause of the increased number of people now suffering from asthma in the UK." Given that air pollution was declining until 2000, this must be true. But a study of 4,000 children in Munich showed that those who lived within 50 metres of busy roads were twice as likely to suffer from asthma, and suffered more from coughing, wheezing and allergies. A massive study in Taiwan - involving 300,000 children - found that those exposed to the heaviest traffic pollution were 16% more likely to suffer from allergic rhinitis (hayfever, housedust allergy and the like). The most carcinogenic compound ever detected - 3-nitrobenzanthrone - is produced by heavily loaded diesel engines. Like the other cancer-causing molecules they emit, it is released in very small quantities, and no one yet knows what effect it might have. But exhaust pollutants of the class to which it belongs appear, unusually, to pass straight through the placenta, which means that foetuses might be especially vulnerable.

That the decline in some forms of pollution has stopped - despite technological advances - points to a series of staggering regulatory failures. The most immediate one has recently been uncovered by researchers at Oxford Brookes University. They found that the government tests designed to ensure that catalytic converters work properly are hopeless. In the laboratory, the converter in a modern car conforming to the latest regulations appears to have an efficiency of more than 99%. In the real world this falls to 72-75%. It looks as if the manufacturers are designing their cars to respond to the peculiarities of the government test, rather than to reduce emissions on the road.

While enforcement is feeble, the tough rules the EU once proposed have been nobbled by the manufacturers. The new strategy the commission published in September consists of asking them sweetly to stop killing our frail citizens, rather than imposing a legal obligation to keep reducing the quantity of fine soot particles their vehicles produce. It grants governments like ours - which have done as little as they can get away with - five years in which to sit on their backsides and make excuses.

But even with all this mollycoddling, we still can't meet the rules. This year the UK has somehow contrived to break the pathetic standards (a maximum of 35 days on which pollution can exceed the legal limit) that the EU currently imposes. The problem appears to be that the growth in traffic has caught up with the improvement in the performance of engines. The government has been arguing that to do something about this would not be "cost effective". But as the National Society for Clean Air points out, if it had acted when it had to, the rules would have cost far less. The idea that laws can be broken when it makes financial sense has interesting implications for the criminal justice system.

As a cyclist, these failures drive me berserk. I refuse to own a car, partly because I believe it is wrong to fill other people's lungs with carcinogens. And so, while the drivers breathe their filtered air, I have to sit behind their tailpipes, drawing their excretions - for I am exerting myself - deep into my chest.

The Routemasters being dragged - to incomprehensible public dismay - off the streets of London do not die. Their tops are cut off, then their headless wights are sent to my home city - Oxford - with the sole and certain purpose of making our lives hel_l. Carrying two or three half-frozen tourists at a time, they trundle round and round the centre on endless guided tours. To judge by the smoke that comes out of their rear ends they seem to run on burning tyres rather than diesel, but the council's environmental health department, engaged in lively competition with the planning department to establish the outer limits of uselessness, refuses to return my calls, so I have no idea why they are still allowed to operate.

At least the bar staff can, though perhaps at the cost of unemployment, withdraw their labour from the cancer market, but what choice do I have, or does anyone have, short of living in an oxygen tent? Why, in this age of particulate filters and hypercars, do I have to fill my lungs with every known species of airborne fug whenever I go to buy a pint of milk? Is it so hard for a government, which seems determined to offend the entire voting public with its assaults on schools and hospitals, to stand up to a handful of motor manufacturers who no longer even operate here? Or must we believe that public health in the UK takes second place to the profits of foreign corporations?

· The references for this and all George Monbiot's recent columns can be found at Monbiot.com

[The Dude]

The Anti-Smoking lobby was created by the same people who promote smoking; how ironic is that? The left wing liberal maniacs pushed for ultra high taxes on cigs in the late 90s to prevent "kids" from smoking. These new high taxes were somehow going to do this. How ludicrous, all it does is exactly the opposite. So they go out and get those enormous new cig taxes enacted and pocket billions of dollars in the process. The media blitz campaign that followed effectively outlawed smoking anywhere. What did the "kiddies" think about this super taboo item now, smoking? Now we gotta try it. It's been basically outlawed. At the very same time, these liberals who control Hollywood also, promote cigs in every movie one sees at the box office. When's the last time you saw a movie without smokers in them? Never, that's right. Wonder how much the tobacco co's shell to the Hollywood lib movie co's for all that promotion. Those libs worship all that cig cash coming in from diff directions. The Dudes shovels should be used to bash the heads of these Hollywood Clinton Liberals. How highly undiggable

[Sir Burr]

I'm a smoker (wish I wasn't).

Four questions I ask anti-smoking zealots to get them off my back.

1. Do you drive a car (I don't, didn't pass my test).

2. If I stuck ten cigarettes in my mouth and smoked them all at once, then did it again and again until I died, how long would that take?

3. If I fixed a hose-pipe to the exhaust of your car and then breathed it until I died, how long would it take?

4. Do you ever drive past a school?

[Glauka]

I was living in Scotland when the big debate about smoking started. I though and still think that people against smokings are a bit cinical. First is the problem of pollution ( i got asthma while I was living in Edinburgh as well as other allergies). Secondly I think at least in U.K people has serious problems with alcohol. Some people when they get drunk become very offensive blah, blah, blah...Many people is this country is alcoholic . Also I think is a bit silly to face a problem only giving the two extremes of a option. Smokers vs non-smokers, I think this issue is more complex as just to say I am against smokers or not. The think that really annoys me is to see how the people fight against each other, " oh you disgusting smoker" or " I am feed up with non-smokers..." Why you do not come together and ask the goverment why they do not take the problem from the root. Why the goverment do not obligate the big tabacco companies to reduce the amount of dangerous chemicals in their cigarettes, or make them less addictive...Come on stop taking one side of the problem and go against the culpables nor the victims...

[skylar]

I smoke. That is what I do.

So? Good on you. That's your choice. Others' choice is not to smoke. Clapclapclapclapclap.

All the popular brands are available and I have found one that is very close to my usual brand.

My mother used to send me down the road for Dunhills at 20 baht a pack. They were so cheap that she smoked more of them. When we moved to Australia, she realised that smoking that many Dunhills here would send the family bankrupt, and she ended up on Horizon 4s. That's the bottom of the barrel for non-Aussies. I sincerely hope you don't have to suffer this fate one day.

It makes no difference to me as to whether someone lights up in my face or not, as I have been a second hand smoker since birth. At the train station, I have noticed that smokers come to sit right next to me even when I am the only one on the end of a bench and light up to make me move out of my seat. Fortunately for me, smoke smells like sweets. However, I do take offence to 'Sky', a truly horrid brand my mother smoked in England in the early 90s - it smelt like cabbages cooking.

[ilyushin]

When I go out boozing, I just gotta have a butt!

[Sir Burr]

When I go out boozing, I just gotta have a butt!

Maybe you should check out the Katoey thread.

[Boon Mee]

A Real Nasty Habit

Edited November 9, 2005 by Boon Mee

[spog]

I'm a smoker (wish I wasn't).

Four questions I ask anti-smoking zealots to get them off my back.

1. Do you drive a car (I don't, didn't pass my test).

2. If I stuck ten cigarettes in my mouth and smoked them all at once, then did it again and again until I died, how long would that take?

3. If I fixed a hose-pipe to the exhaust of your car and then breathed it until I died, how long would it take?

4. Do you ever drive past a school?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1- No

2 -The fatal dose for nictotine poisoning is 40-60mg. A low-tar cigarette contains 0.2mg+ of nicotine. 90% of the nicotine is absorbed by the smoker. So, if you smoked 220-330 cigarettes in a row, 10 at a time, 10 minutes per set, you'd be dead within 6 hours.

3- Death from dehydration, starvation or boredom? A car exhaust, fitted with a catalytic convertor, will not produce enough CO to kill a person.

4-No.

[Sir Burr]

3- Death from dehydration, starvation or boredom? A car exhaust, fitted with a catalytic convertor, will not produce enough CO to kill a person.

Oh yes it will. CO has 200 times the affinity for attaching to red blood cells than oxygen has.

People are still commiting suicide this way.

[The Man]

3- Death from dehydration, starvation or boredom? A car exhaust, fitted with a catalytic convertor, will not produce enough CO to kill a person.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh yes it will. CO has 200 times the affinity for attaching to red blood cells than oxygen has.

People are still commiting suicide this way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

just cos cars can kill dosnt change the fact that smokin is nasty and killer too

trin to confuse like that aint good mate, face the facts

[Sir Burr]

just cos cars can kill dosnt change the fact that smokin is nasty and killer too

No shit Einstein.

[spog]

Oh yes it will. CO has 200 times the affinity for attaching to red blood cells than oxygen has.

People are still commiting suicide this way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, don't tell the American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology as they seem to think that a properly running modern car doesn't produce enough CO to kill a person.

Asphyxial Deaths Caused by Automobile Exhaust Inhalation not Attributable to Carbon Monoxide Toxicity: Study of 2 Cases.

American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology. 23(2):123-126, June 2002.

Schmunk, Gregory A. M.D.; Kaplan, James A. M.D.

Abstract:

The authors report two suicides that resulted from the intentional inhalation of automobile exhaust gases in which death occurred without the formation of physiologically significant amounts of carboxyhemoglobin. These circumstances are correlated with measurements of the involved vehicles' exhaust gases, which showed reduced concentrations of carbon monoxide present, reflecting improvements in automobile engine technology. In the absence of carbon monoxide toxicity, the authors attribute death in these cases to asphyxia caused by carbon dioxide intoxication and diminished atmospheric oxygen concentrations.

[chuchok]

Oh yes it will. CO has 200 times the affinity for attaching to red blood cells than oxygen has.

People are still commiting suicide this way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, don't tell the American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology as they seem to think that a properly running modern car doesn't produce enough CO to kill a person.

Asphyxial Deaths Caused by Automobile Exhaust Inhalation not Attributable to Carbon Monoxide Toxicity: Study of 2 Cases.

American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology. 23(2):123-126, June 2002.

Schmunk, Gregory A. M.D.; Kaplan, James A. M.D.

Abstract:

The authors report two suicides that resulted from the intentional inhalation of automobile exhaust gases in which death occurred without the formation of physiologically significant amounts of carboxyhemoglobin. These circumstances are correlated with measurements of the involved vehicles' exhaust gases, which showed reduced concentrations of carbon monoxide present, reflecting improvements in automobile engine technology. In the absence of carbon monoxide toxicity, the authors attribute death in these cases to asphyxia caused by carbon dioxide intoxication and diminished atmospheric oxygen concentrations.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mate, the study of only 2 cases does not make it a given.