Sweet sinsemilla it has finally happened. I have been waiting for this moment for about three years now. For those that don’t know, I am a smoker. I am not a chimney in the sense I don’t smoke a pack a day. Perhaps a pack every 96 hours which equates to about 5 sticks a day. I also plan on quitting this winter season and am smoking less and less these days. However, I vehemently defend my, and everyone else’s, right to smoke.
Over the past few years, the anti-smoking lobby has grown increasingly vocal and influential on the back of misleading data, slick campaigning, sympathetic legislative bodies and a proliferation of milquetoasts. These days, in most developed countries, you cannot smoke indoors at all. Furthermore, the anti-smoking lobby would have one’s right to smoke removed completely i.e. make smoking illegal (let’s be clear, we are talking tobacco, not the wacky tabaccy).
The top two reasons given are as follows:
Smoking is bad for you. It pollutes your lungs and eventually gives you lung cancer, or some other form of cancer.
Smoking is harmful to those around you. Apparently it is worse for second-hand smokers than for the actual smoker. Same problems, lung cancer, etc.
I’ll be frank. I am fully aware that smoking is bad for me. I am an avid sports fan (I mean playing, not watching) and I can easily tell how just one smoke affects me ability to run around the court (tennis) or make a run down the left flank (football) or go six games non-stop (squash). In no way do I debate the debilitating effects of the cancer stick. So I don’t need anyone else to reinforce said information and, I suspect, neither to other smokers. Aside from young kids, most smokers know exactly what it is they are doing to themselves every time they light up. Those payout-seekers who sued the tobacco companies claiming they didn’t know cigarettes were bad for them are just that: gold digging despicable individuals. It’s smoke people, it’s certainly not good for you and that’s a no-brainer. In fact, it’s the same as those obese people (sorry, I meant to say fat fucks) who claim they didn’t know Big Macs were bad for them… seriously, you’re fat, not stupid… on second thought, I guess you’re both huh?
This brings me to an oft used retort I have when people question my smoking. To me, fast food as well as casual dining is as bad for you as smoking. What with all the trans-fat, cholesterol, oil, grease, MSG, pesticides and so on, one is just slowly killing oneself (lookie-that, just like smoking). Combine this with the fact that unhealthy food is some five to ten times cheaper to procure than the healthy stuff and you have a slowly simmering recipe for death. Not to mention the fact that such pricing breeds a sustainable, self-perpetuating market for dietitians, gyms and lose-weight-quick companies. But that doesn’t affect you 5cents, it’s a personal thing. Is it? Shit food leads to obesity which means I have to put up with the fat fuck spilling all over me on the flight to see my parents, not once, but every single time now. I’ve been to see my parents some 12 times in the past six years, how is it possible I get an obese person next to me every time? It’s disgusting. Plus, in the event of a plane crash, should I survive the impact, I have to whip out the climbing rope and ice pick just to circumnavigate the whale blubbering next to me… it’s a safety hazard. A similar situation could be envisaged for a building ablaze. A fat individual, or worse, several of them, could clog up the staircase. 5cents, that’s a ludicrous statement. Fuck you, I say, its the truth.
Another oft used retort is the N. American obsession with gas-guzzling SUVs. You have but to stand in a downtown environ and stare at the gridlock of Escalades, Explorers and Expeditions to feel faint from their monoxide output. The exhaust gases spewing from the oversized V-6s and V-8s wafts over all nearby pedestrians, mostly odorless but highly toxic. I hate it, and if you think it’s not the same as inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke, HERE’s a little eye-opener:
Now what right do you have to tell me to stop smoking when your road-going monoxide-spewing battleship puts out fifty times the volume of toxic gas in the same five minutes? None.
This is the first time, one of my retorts has ever made the news in an official capacity and I hope the research continues. My (and other smokers) smoking is the least of your pollution concerns people. Wake up.
Finally, an oft quoted statistic about smoking is the death rate from lung cancer. Apparently many (or is it most) smokers die from lung cancer. Anyone who has taken statistics should question such logical fallacies. For starters, how many people smoke and do NOT die from lung cancer. Furthermore, how many people don’t smoke and die from lung cancer? The statistics aren’t broadcast and without them it is scientifically impossible to make any sound inference about the data. Finally, just about everybody dies from some sort of cancer. They say cancer is the number one killer in the world. Well of course, that’s like saying death is the number one killer in the world. How else is one supposed to die? A natural death involves your body shutting down or losing its battle against the elements that it has fought for decades. Cancer is a normal death simply because we are mortal. If we didn’t succumb to cancer, a lot of us would be bloody immortal.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough, its late and my train of thought is pulling into the midnight dream station. Goodnight.
NOTE: This is a highly opinionated article done is such fashion to drive a point home. Do I hate obese people (fat fucks as I eloquently put it)? On my flights when they take up 302% of the 14 inch seat allotted to them, hell yes. As people in general, no. Do I hate all SUV drivers? No. I’m an easy-going Bob Marley-loving, Gandhian guy. But if you decide to take the moral high ground against me while one foot drags surreptitiously in a pile of hypocrisy or misinformation, I’m a-call you on it. Peace and one love!
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Further confirmation that militant anti-smokers are having their way, see article HERE. Summary: Gainesville State College is one of nearly 60 universities/colleges in the US that has banned smoking on campus. That is, inside or outside under a blue sky, you can’t light up.
We’re two rules away from not being able to grab your crotch, or snort, or talk loudly in public. Erosion if the individual’s right? More like the state/corporation/entity-bigger-than-you controlling everything about your life, including the air around you.
Like I said, funniest part is smokers have to go to their cars to smoke. Cars that put out probably 100 times the smoke, carcinogens and pollution. Brilliant.
Smokers are killing nature’s creatures. Just the other day while driving my hummer offroad through the countryside, my friend decided to try to light one of those cancer sticks in my truck. I got so pissed (not in the drunk sense)that I spilled some of the sauce from my pork ribs on my shirt. While I was reaching for a napkin on the floor, my gut became wedged under the steering wheel (cars are just too small these days) and locked us in a collision course with a cute little chipmunk. Needless to say, the chipmunk became a floormat all because of this despicable smoker. 5cent, people like you should be banned. By the way, I think it is already illegal for you to grab my crotch.
Crotch grabbing aside, Hummers and/or smokers (indirectly of course) are the rightful predators of chipmunks in the absence of birds of prey.
In any case, we need be cautious about chipmunks as their cousins, the squirrels, are already taking matters into their own hands. Read the Womb’s article HERE.