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Why do people still smoke (tobacco)?


Mook
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Serious question.

And yes, I'm a former smoker, although only "social" (except from 18 to early 20s, when I smoked full time). I'm categorically not a "reformed smoker", preaching to people about why they should stop. I do tell them they stink though :P

Clip on the radio yesterday morning that 67% of men in Indonesia smoke :eek:

Two of my mates stopped completely recently, because their mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Not being funny, but it's a bit f*cking late isn't it?

I know we're got a few smokers on here - why do you still smoke? Are you assuming that you're not going to get some hideous heart disease, mouth, throat or lung cancer, clogged arteries etc.?

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Because I enjoy it, it's a free world and I respect everyone having choice.

I get that - that's not my point about doing what you want to. Do you not give a shiit about the fact that it will likely kill you, in a very slow and hideously painful way?

Do you drink alcohol?

Very rarely, but I get your point about that as well - I know that there's more issues w.r.t. alcohol abuse.

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Enjoying it is the thing there isn't it and I'd consider that a very fair answer.

What I don't understand now though is why anyone would start to smoke. You have to be 18 to buy them, the health risks are pretty well documented, it isn't advertised and is, I'd have thought, a diminishing habit, not to mention a flaming expensive one.

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Because I enjoy it, it's a free world and I respect everyone having choice.

+++ Fair enough

Do you drink alcohol?

Alcohol is different IMHO. Completely. In small amounts it's good for you. Smoking is all bad.

I used to smoke and feel the same as Mook does. Free will and all that, but I thought I enjoyed smoking until about 6 months after I quit. Glad I unchained myself from that slippery slope. The only preaching I do is at my mum who still smokes like a chimney and blames stress on not giving up, which I think is bollox.

What I don't understand now though is why anyone would start to smoke. You have to be 18 to buy them, the health risks are pretty well documented, it isn't advertised and is, I'd have thought, a diminishing habit, not to mention a flaming expensive one.

Because it makes you look cool. Since when did minimum age restriction stop kids smoking?

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I'm not going to get into a drawn out debate on this because I have my views and threads like this lead to people going on crusades and getting overly personal in my opinion.

The health risks on drinking are well documented and some people on here drink more in a week than I do in a year. I rarely drink alcohol. Holidays, and even then it's very little (a double malt or two would be me having a drink on holiday that was heavy!). From memory I think I've had 5-6 bottles of Peroni or Bud all year, always after working in the garden. That's my total consumption because I don't really enjoy alcohol.

There are a million and one things that can kill you. Smoking is a big one of them.

My mother never smoked. Ever. She swam 26 miles a week. She was as fit as a fiddle and ate very healthily. She died aged 55 from pancreatic cancer. There was no history of cancer in our family - none whatsoever. That's not a reason to smoke, of course it's not, but the simple fact is that whilst you can adjust the odds on your dying I watched someone who did absolutely everything healthily - die at a relatively young age.

Driving your car around a track is dangerous. Doing lots of extreme sports or events is dangerous. Climbing up mountains and stuff is dangerous. But you do them because you enjoy them and you accept the risks.

That's my total contribution to this. Asking the question will not get you anywhere in my opinion, with any smoker. Just like my asking you about any of the above won't. You do them because you enjoy them.

Maybe another smoker will come along and take up the argument, but I can't be doing with it because, being honest, people that ask this type of question are always going to take it only one way - and that's their way. You won't really listen to the answers or feedback. You don't think there is any reason at all. That's why you've asked the question. It misses the point - choice.

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I'm not going to get into a drawn out debate on this because I have my views and threads like this lead to people going on crusades and getting overly personal in my opinion.

That's categorically NOT the point of asking the question. There's nothing personal about it, in terms of trying to attack someone who does. Maybe I should re-phrase the question - what would it take (if anything) for you to stop smoking and do you not "care" about the health issues it causes?

:beer:

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Driving your car around a track is dangerous.

What? You mean I might crash?? :eek:

:grin:

I see your point, MrMe, but it's an answer to the question "Why should we not ban you from smoking". Given recent history in this country, that's an understandable reflex response. As I read Mook's question, though, he just wants to know what is the motivation that keeps you smoking despite the knowledge of what it will do to you? Is it just that people naturally discount vague future risks, or is there a more rational justification? In other words, is it really pleasurable enough to outweigh the known health risks? (in the same way as motorsport, say)

Never having smoked (not once), I'm kind of intrigued by the question. But then again, I know the health risks of being unfit & overweight but still eat too much (so don't think I'm being a self-righteous health fanatic).

In short, what I think I'm asking is, is smoking like Motorsport or over-eating?

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Because it makes you look cool. Since when did minimum age restriction stop kids smoking?

Agreed, but since the age limit was raised surely that make it a bit harder to get hold of the things. I always thought people started when they were young because it is pretty much the first adult thing you can do at the old age of 16 - the first choice you can make about how to live your life so many took it just because they could.

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It is all about enjoyment - some of my mates who are heavy smokers love having a fag, they seriously love it. There are plenty of people who smoke and live to a ripe old age without any sign of health risk. You can be fit smoking too - I have heard of guys lining up at the start of an SAS selection test with a fag on.

There is also quite a good social aspect to it too - all the guys here swear by a smoke with colleagues to have a bit of a nose about and hear what is going on elsewhere in the company.

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Right, so £50 a week, or £2,600 a year if you're on 20 a day. Bloody hell!

Oh yeah, that's the other reason I'm happy to have quit. I'd have much sh1tt1er phones to lose :grin:

There are a number of footballers that smoke. Zidane is about as famous an example as there can be. Rooney and Koscielny do too AFAIK. My uncle-soon-to-be-in-law smokes socially and he does multiple triathlons and crazy shiz like Mook. So it can be done, but it must make everything more hard work though.

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I'm very very anti smoking(don't know why), I find it a horrible anti-social habit, you smell it makes you many times more likely to die a more slow and painful death, however I don't want to stop people from the choice of smoking.

If someone wants to spend their time and money smoking in their own home or outside the pub I'm nice and warm in in the middle of winter its their choice. Smokers now provide far more tax than it costs the NHS to treat them so you could also argue they help provide more than they take away.

There are far to many people telling us what we can't do, what we shouldn't do, why shouldn't we do it, we don't live in a police state so feck off and leave me or anyone else to what I choose to do if it doesn't affect you in any way.

So in a way whilst I think smokers are idiots, I want them to have the choice to do it (as long as they do it so it doesn't affect anyone else)so I agree with what MrMe is saying if he wants to let him plain an simple. +++

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Is that true? If so, let them advertise again :D

I wonder if the same can be said for obesity issues.

Roughly, £9.5bn in tax income and cost to NHS of £1.7Bn for the 103,000 deaths each year as a result?? of smoking, 84 per cent of deaths from lung cancer and 83 per cent of deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease, including bronchitis.

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We spend about £420 a month on cigarettes. We both smoke. I don't really drink and MrsMe might drink a bottle of wine over the period of a week, if that.

We don't smoke in the house. Never have done, never would do.

I try to be considerate of others if I am out and about. I would never have a cigarette whilst walking along. Nor would I ever have one near an open window. If we're out shopping, I'll wander off miles from anyone else and have a cigarette. On holiday, even if there are smoking restaurants, I will not smoke in them. It is disrespectful to those that don't smoke. In countries where smoking is everywhere I'll still try and smoke in isolation. Smoking, to me, is NOT a social habit - I want to smoke on my own 99% of the time. It's my time. I don't want to talk to people whilst doing so.

We don't put any burden on the state for education and we have private healthcare cover for the whole family, so I don't feel any responsibility to the taxpayer especially with the amount of tax we put into the coffers every month.

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with the amount of tax we put into the coffers every month.

Should that be cough'ers.

I smoke, and I shouldn't. Four packs a week, or about £30. It's cheaper to go buy weed* and smoke something that's less bad and more fun.

There's unlikely to be a smoker who isn't a bit guilt ridden, maybe we have tuned into the self destructive nature that is the human being.

Some drink, some over eat, some punish a body that will be ruined by 60 due to over exercise, some eat too much chocolate, some sleep with the wrong type of girl too often, some drive too fast.

The question is why? And I'm not sure I know.

* for the same £30 a week I could (every day) have 3 spliffs a day. Or an e a day. Or 1 line of coke. Or 6 lines of amphetamine. Or 2 pints a day. Or 2 large bottles of diet coke. Or 2 Ginster pasties. Or a Big mac and small chips. Or 4 solid home made coffees's.

There's an addictive side to this humanity lark, few have none. Some are lucky to have healthy addictions like exercise.

Although it could be argued that when I'm 70 I'll be breathing via an oxygen bottle, the health ones will have had both knees, both hip replaced and still need sticks to walk.

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