Off Topic: Do You Smoke?

[JohnL]

>Do any of you smoke tobacco

No, actually I like to smoke rolled up cardboard. :)

Seriously though, I don't smoke. Both my parents and grandparents smoked so I've been around secondhand smoke my whole life. I've tried it in the past, but never got hooked. I like the smell of tobacco, until it starts burning, then it stinks. As for "flavor" I once tried a cigar that tasted sweet, but that wast he actual cigar. Once it was lit, the smoke didn't have any real taste to it.

I've also seen what smoking does to people. My grandmother died a couple years ago. She started having episodes where her lungs started filling up with fluid. They'd drain the fluid and she'd be ok for a while then it would start happening again. Finally it got to the point where they were having to do it continuously. Turns out that she had a massive tumor in her lung that was inoperable.

My parents still smoke and every couple of months, my mother goes through dizzy spells from smoking too much. Every day when my father wakes up, he spends a good 10-15 minutes doing nothing but coughing his guts out.

[The Burgomaster]

I don't smoke cigarettes, but I'll occasionally smoke a cigar (maybe 3 or 4 times a year).

[dean]

btw JohnL, not all cigarrettes have tobacco. [though they are completley weak if they don't :P  ]

just before we started going out, my girlfriend used to smoke these cigarettes called "Magic" and were meant to be tobaccoless.  i think they were herbal-type cigarettes but they didn't actually mention what was in them [thus me calling them 'mystery ciggarettes, and no they weren't 'dodgy' in what was in them ;-) ].  Apparently they sort of tasted like marshmellows, though i never tried them.  you could only get them in the CBD in my city in some wierd shop.  

btw i don't smoke, never really have.  smoked a couple but really didn't give a hoot so never took it up.  i'd rather spend my money on other addictions!!
[here we come casino...! ]

[JohnL]

>btw JohnL, not all cigarrettes have tobacco.

I know. The smoking man on The X-Files actually smoked herbal cigarettes so he wouldn't get addicted to them while doing the show. It's just that when someone asks if you smoke, they usually mean tobacco.

[Susan]

I smoked for nearly 10 years starting when I was 12. I got up to 2 packs a day of Malboro Reds and quit cold turkey. I started having heart episodes that I attributed to smoking, I was such a procastinator but after one of those episodes where i felt like I was going to faint I threw down the pack and officially quit. I figured 22 was not the age to start getting health problems and I knew better from family members having died from it. Most smokers like I did have the attitude that we're all going to die anyways, but to be honest I may not be able to help it if i'm hit by a truck but I can damn well stop smoking those ammonia sticks that were at the time filled with god knows what kind of toxins illegally. My episodes went away and i feel better now. I'm like alot of quitters - I developed this weird hypersensitivity to it now and the smell just makes my stomach turn not to mention coughing and burning eyes. I sort of am embarassed now that I smell a smoker to think i really did stink that badly, I thought my perfume covered it but it only made it worse. And if you are a non smoker who kisses a smoker it's truly a repulsive experience...no amount of gum or mouthwash in the world is gonna help. :)

I only wish I had back all the cash I spent on those things....



Post Edited (08-24-03 20:34)

[Apostic]

When it was cheaper than food, I used to smoke.

I started with a pipe but got too impatient.  Cigarettes followed.  When they got too expensive, I used to roll my own.

(Those of you who know me already know this next part.)

A couple of decades later,  I had several minor heart attacks didn't know it.  Too busy at work.  Just reflux and a toothache, I thought.  But one day my wife found out what had been troubling me made me go to an emergency room.  (She's a nurse; she can do stuff like that.)  

Three days later, a well paid surgeon pulled my chest apart and added to my heart some arteries and veins, which had been donated courtesy of an arm and a leg.  It was a quintuple by-pass.  Coincidentally, It was my wife's birthday.

That was two years ago.

Did smoking contribute to that condition?  Yup.

Do I smoke now?  Nope.  After what she went through, I think my wife would divorce me.  One of my coworkers who smoked saw me about a day after the surgery.  I had an intriguing shade of gray.  He quit smoking.

Would I still like a smoke?  Yep.  But I don't -- one day a time.

Do I encourage others to stop smoking?  Nope.  Y'see, I used to be a smoker, and I know what it meant to me when someone told me, via commercials or taxes or just plain friendly advice, to quit smoking.  It meant it was time to light up another one.  Maybe two.

But I will say this for those of you who smoke.  You know that someday you will quit.  Maybe you're thinking that you'll quit but you'll wait until you have to.

That may not turn out to be as logical as you think.

No,  I'm not going to tell anyone to quit.  I'm just going to say, you'll probably quit someday anway, so do it sooner when it's easier instead of later when you'll want to kick yourself in the ass for waiting so long.

regards,

Apostic

PS - My cigarette money became my DVD money.  Cha-ching!

[Drezzy Mac]

Funny enough, before I was a smoker, I dated a smoker. And I didn't mind the taste of cigarettes on her mouth at all. Didn't taste exquisite or anything, but I didn't care that it tasted like ash.

And you'd be amazed how much a single stick of Orbit takes away the flavor/smell of cigarette smoke on one's breath.

[wickednick]

Oh god another one of those topics that I like to write about.Sorry guys.
Well im a non smoker of cigarettes, but I do smoke weed on occasion.But what I want to talk about is cigarettes and the idiots that are protesting them.I f**king hate those comercials with those morons standing in front of a tobacco company and doing stupid things to try and make the company stop making cigarettes.
Now what p**ses me off about these people is that they make it sound like its the tobacco companys that are making people buy cigarettes, and that they have been concelling the fact that cigarettes are dangerous.Well the fact is that this is stupid to think. For over 20 years there has been warning labels on the side of cigarettes telling us that they are dangerous, but people still smoked them.For over 20 years the tobacco companys have not been allowed to advertise on tv or radio, but smoking continued.
The tobacco companys I don't think are some big evil coglomerate they are a buisness thrying to do buisness.Every one knows the risks of cigarettes and any one who says other wise are lieing through there teeth.These people who sewed the tobacco companys because they got cancer are morons.They new that the risks of smoking before they started and they still did it.Can't these people f**king read the side of a cigarette box.
People smoke because they want to.

[BlackAngel]

I don't smoke cigarettes, I smoke women.  That's what I say when someone asks me for a light or if I do smoke.

I don't like cigarettes, but I can tolerate them, and pipe tobacco as well.  But what I can't stand is cigars.  To me the smell is absolutly unbearable.  If I see someone coming towards me with a smoking cuban, if possible, I will cross the street.  Or, if I'm walking behind someone who smoking a cigar, I would hold my breath and try to walk pass as fast I can.  I can't understand this affection for cigars.  To me, they're just plain nasty.
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Bulls**t, I still can't hear you, sound off like you got a pair.

[tooshea]

I kicked cigars for a pipe chicks dig the smell

[JohnL]

>The tobacco companys I don't think are some big evil coglomerate they are a
>buisness thrying to do buisness

By making a product that ruins people's health and eventually kills them, oh plus it's addictive, so even if people want to stop, it's very hard. And the tobacco companies have been proven to have lied about knowing that cigarettes are addictive.

>People smoke because they want to.

And I inhale second-hand smoke because I want to?

[Susan]

>>The tobacco companys I don't think are some big evil coglomerate they are a buisness thrying to do buisness.Every one knows the risks of cigarettes and any one who says other wise are lieing through there teeth.These people who sewed the tobacco companys because they got cancer are morons.They new that the risks of smoking before they started and they still did it.Can't these people f**king read the side of a cigarette box.
<,

That's not the point of the lawsuits - it's that big tobacco flat out lied in a court of law. In fact for years they were putting more highly addictive stuff in those cigarettes than it labeled on the box - not to mention a whole lot of other "experimental" chemical s**t they weren't supposed to, which in turn, probably has caused more damage than the tar alone. Why did they put that stuff in there (and still do)? To find chemicals that make smokers more addicted to it. They don't wanna lose business, in fact they want it to pick up. It is very shady

[raj]

That's about 3-4 times as many cigars I'll smoke.  Usually one cigar a year.

I did try cigarettes in high school/college, but for some reason tobacco never really appealed to me.  Probably it is due in part to my folks being anti-smoking (though they also look down on alcohol & I drink), partly watching my uncle shrivel up & die from lung cancer, and partly due to being allergic to smoke.

[AndyC]

Never got a taste for smoking, although I did experiment a little when I was younger. I used to like Cuban cigars as an occasional treat, when camping or golfing or finishing up something important. Haven't had one in a long time. There was also a brief period when I tried a pipe. Problem with those is that they smell better than they taste, and they can be a pain in the ass compaired to something simpler. Cigars were the opposite - they tasted better than they smelled. Just the same, I could not stand it when the same guy who would think nothing of blowing cigarette smoke in my face for an hour at a coffee shop would complain about the smell of my cigar outside. Cigarettes have no redeeming qualities like flavour or aroma. I never liked them. They're full of cheap, dry, crappy tobacco, and the smoke smells and tastes like nothing more than harsh old smoke. Never liked them, and can't say I've smoked enough of them to fill a pack (they were all offered to me when I was feeling drunk and rowdy).

In any case, I never smoked enough of anything to call myself a smoker, and it's been years since I did that much. It just did nothing for me.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Yes, but only when I am on vacation.

Why, I don't know. The smoke dries out the fluid in my eyeballs. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And it leaves a stinking ordor on me, but, I still smoke, especially, when I cruise.

I like to smoke flavored cigarillos, which are basically small cigars, the size of cigarettes. Twice around the deck, and I'm through.