As a quick observation, though, you might be interested to know that the BMA has pronounced on yesterday's much-publicised manifesto from Alcohol Concern and Lundbeck Ltd's Westminster puppets.
You see, for most of us, the manifesto would seem rather extreme and largely unwarranted, including as it does:
- Appointment of a minister for boozeNot so for the BMA. And especially not so for their hero Ian Gilmore, the head of the Alcohol Health Alliance, a bunch of temperance lobbyists in the mould of 1920s America's Anti-Saloon League.
- Minimum alcohol pricing (aka "the poor shouldn't drink")
- Public health to be involved in pub/retail licensing
- More bans on beer ads
- Tobacco style warnings on wine bottles
- Scaremongering anti-drinking TV adverts
- Near halving the drink driving limit
‘The Westminster government urgently needs to start tackling the public health harms of alcohol. The measures laid out in the APPG manifesto are a crucial first step.’Well, as Pete Brown points out today, "urgent" is overwrought and only justifiable if you believe the anti-alcohol lobby's incessant lying. But he said first step, you note, and that government should start tackling alcohol - as if sky high taxation, stiff advertising regs and strict licensing/age limits don't exist.
Because, as we have always said here, the bansturbator class can never be satisfied unless and until their funds are cut off and/or politicians stop listening to them for the sake of a free and personally responsible society.
He is at least honest in admitting that there will be many, many more "logical next steps" to come. If government acceded to every proposal in the APPG manifesto, the same people would be back the very next week with more demands - from naughty tills; through bans on alcohol displays; and onto plain packaging for bottles of Chardonnay.
Every journey begins with a single step, so be in no doubt that extremist Gilmore sincerely hopes his 'crucial first' one culminates eventually in the UK's very own Volstead Act. Interfering in the choices and enjoyment of others is what he and his ilk do for a living, after all.
78 comments:
What, you mean you're not taking her to Bangkok for a long weekend for your Thai nosh? Where's your sense of romance? I could have given you the nod for a couple of good eateries there, too.
Re the body of the post, well, what can I say? It is just so depressing being surrounded by these self-righteous morons, all clamouring to be the one to bring the greatest amount of misery to their fellow (?) man. Where do they come from? In a sane world, their gene pool would have been eliminated by natural selection millennia ago. How come they're still walking among us, leeching the very soul out of society? They are a pestilence. Isn't there a spray or fumigator we can use to purge them? B&Q perhaps? I'll have to check out their website under "Pest Control".
I despair sometimes, I really do.
I have to point out the the Public 'Elf is already in the loop on licencing as they are now part of local councils..... A bunch of prodnose busybody failed medics that even the NHS could no longer stomach have been farmed out to local councils and have their own "arms length" professional body in "Public Health England" ( AKA PHE ) - they have already started to try and "make their mark". In my neck of the woods (SFSW-land) they are already cranking the PR machine.
Oxygen larceny is surely a public health issue innit?
Thanks for another great post, Dick.
We have noticed the price of booze go up considerably over the past few years. A few examples: no more litre bottles of sherry, 50cl bottles of spirits replacing 75 cl (or litre ones) at rather steep prices. (I hope I have my sizes correct here, not having been raised on metric. ;) )
For now, though, today is a happy time for you! Best wishes on your third anniversary. My better half and I celebrated our 23rd yesterday. :)
Hope you and Mrs P have enjoyed yourselves!
Churchmouse
Had a great time, my official theologian. Congrats to you too on a much greater achievement. :)
Ian Gilmore is the unacceptable face of modern Britain. He is a professional liar and extremist knighted by self interested cowards and promoted by our illustrious and oh so impartial public broadcaster. All paid for by our long suffering tax payers.
We're heading to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Many congratulations on your 3rd wedding anniversary yesterday. Hope you are both still a little full and hungover from last night.
I have nothing against the smell. Perhaps almost 11 months on e-cigs is to short to have something against the after smell of smoking. But why is this specific for e-cigs users. All non-smokers or ex-smokers will tell you this. I do wonder about the following when I was young it was never a problem, I also did not smell the same thing as today. Did the composition of cigarettes change so the smell is stronger now. Doesn't your sense of smell get worse when getting older. So why does it smell stronger now or do you only think it is worse today. But back to the question. I don't know if Peter stinks. I can't smell anything over the internet. So no.
The perceived smell and lack of appeal to young children could of course be the blokes own personal experience. Either way, It would be nice if Peter didn't base his opinon of ecigs and the millions of people who use them on a single encounter with one rude (and possibly TC brainwashed) asshole.
I don't know about the smell, or the personality of the person he met but for me an ecig is far from a piece of plastic - its a finely engineered lump of metal and some of the juices you can get are truly outstanding. I don't really see it as the difference between an Ale and an Alcopop, they are different nicotine delivery devices like a helicopter and a hot air balloon are different transport solutions. The ecig has only been around a short while and evolved immensely in that time, cut it some slack!
The smell of cigarette smoke nearly 3 years after I have quit smoking, makes me sick. I hold my breath when someone is actively smoking near me and try to get away as fast as possible. I don't give two hoots if the person is smoking or not, that is their choice, but it is also my choice to move away if it is bothering ME. I would never dream of asking them to go somewhere else because of my bad attitude towards to the smell.
He's certainly not met the majority of us vapers, for the most part, we're a really outgoing group of people and most are happy to talk "shop" with anyone about ecigs. Of course this is the real world and not every vaper is funny outgoing and talkative. We have our assholes too.
Either way, I hope that he will maybe read up a little bit more about ecigs and have a peek around some of the social sites to he sees were not all pompous anti smoking nut cases :)
To my mind, an arsehole is an arsehole. Just because someone smokes or vapes, that is not going to change. The guy in the restaurant was rude and ignorant as a vaper and probably was as a smoker. Generally (and I do not care how controversial this is) smoke smells unpleasant to a non smoker who is not routinely exposed to it. Yet, there are smokers who would not think twice about blowing it in ppl's faces. Likewise, there are vapers who don't much care if not everyone loves the smell of custard. Unfortunately, in the above post, no one comes out smelling of anything pleasant at all.
It is a personal thing, but I certainly would not dream of lecturing a smoker about smoking. But people do, ex-smokers often being the worse (and we may wonder at the fact there are so many of them in tobacco control!). If a vaper behaves like an ignorant fool, then it is not the ecig at fault, it is the fool. Ever so he was one and ever so he will be one.
That said, it is equally disappointing to see a smoker dismiss all vapers with the sweep of a hand based on the behaviour of a few. I might do the same with men, given some of the appaling behaviour I have had to deal with working behind a bar, but I don't.
As for the family thing - non smokers who are routinely around smokers, may smell smoke as the smoker does. My eldest son (nigh on 13) coughed yesterday when someone exhaled a plume of smoke as they walked past him. I was surprised and asked if smoke smelled different to him since his dad and I took up vaping. It was a resounding yes. We did NOT really smell disgusting to him when we smoked. But now he is not around smokers, it's smells bad to him.
Some vapers are arseholes. Some smokers are arseholes. The only common denominator is that they are human. And Humans can be arseholes.
Erick, I'm sure someone else can find the link, but there's an article somewhere which describes exactly how smoke was turned from a fragrant aroma into a 'stink' by the change in society brought about by anti-smoking rhetoric over decades. If you told people that Chanel No 5 stinks for long enough, they'd eventually believe it does. Tobacco hasn't changed, people and their perceptions have.
There are many, though, I have to say. I've seen them on certain forums which I won't mention. ;)
"it is also my choice to move away if it is bothering ME"
A totally antiquated attitude, how dare you tolerate others!
I do think you've identified most of the problem in this particular anecdote. The restaurant guy is a tool and the best response is to not give him any more custom.
Having said that, I do sympathise in one respect, and that's that there is a certain superiority exhibited by some vapers over people who continue to smoke. I definitely think they are an ignorant minority though, which I've said many times before, but Peter obviously has concerns that they are more threatening than that.
By the way, nothing wrong with men, you must have been serving them dodgy measures or something. ;)
LOL yes, invariably it was my fault ;)
The superiority is probably not that different from ex-smokers, and that is born of the fact that giving up smoking is now akin to climbing Everest with only a slab of Kendall Mint Cake for sustenance! Society expects ex-smokers to shout it from the rooftops, but it wasn't always the case. We have been engineered! For some smokers, 'quitting' is like reaching the promised land.
I meant more the smell that is left behind. The smell of a freshly lit cigarette does not stink at all for me. But yes probably is the rhetoric.
I think Peters opinion of vaping is not unlike most vapers' opinion of smokers. Live and let live. Unfortunately, some vapers appear to be repulsed by the smell of tobacco smoke and, sadly, that of smokers (most of whom don't stink). This is not unusual among ex smokers, who (let's face it) all too often morph into the worst kind of anti.
I wouldn't describe the resturaunt owner as insinuating that you smell because of what he said, more that he was repeating what his no smoker family and grand-children have been saying to HIM in their effort to get him to stop smoking, which has obviously succeded now he's a vaper.
I have a mate who is a never smoker and vehemently anti and comlained about smoking before the ban indoors, since the ban he's been largely happy, but when we go out for a ciggie, he would follow us out and continue to complain about the smoke outdoors if you were near him, well don't come out here then, his answer was I don't want to be indoors by my self, this non smoker by the way always carries a lighter, what for you may ask, well when a young lady in the vicinity gets a cigarette out for a smoke, he's over there like a bad fart to give them a light before they get thier own lighter out, gets him in thier company to start the chat up procedure, feckin hypocrite.
There is nothing worse than a "non smoking smoker" that's why TC is full of the self rightous thinking they know more of what the are talking about than someone who's never smoked, because they used to, as if that makes a difference.
I am one of the accidental quitters after over 50 years of smoking Marboro, the day I started the vaping was the last cigarette I will ever smoke, June 20 2013, always enjoyed smoking and never intended on quitting, but I am completely satified with vaping and long may it continue..
I'm an ex-smoker who is now a vaper, I would tell your friend not to worry about it as some people will always smoke. It's probably best for him to accept that there are going to be some people who smoke and some people are going to vape, it's no big deal at the end of the day.
The only thing that annoys me about some vaper's is the holier-than-though anti attitude towards smoking (i.e people calling them "stinkies" and bullshit like that.)
Me personally I have no problems at all with people doing either, it's this kind of thing (the prick in the restaurant) that creates an unnecessary divide between people.
Well, I never wanted to quit. I tried vaping out of curiousity, when a lot the absurd bovine excrement from the ANTZ kept hitting the media fan. That was almost 3 years ago. I had heard about them before but only in passing and always in the context of "smoking cessation". So had filed it away under another cessation gimmick => probably useless and nasty. I once had an operation and couldn't smoke. So i used patches. A very unpleasant, itchy experience. Later I tried a gum and had a drag on an inhaler. Cnce was enough.
Why would people who usually promote cessation gimmicks warn against them with such rubbish? That question prompted me to search for real information.
I found a community of enthusiasts. Well, I'm a sceptic and decided to give it a tentative try. From my research i knew, that the disposable cig-a-likes were not the real thing. but i bought one anyway as "proof of concept". It worked, but it certainly didn't taste good enough as a permanent substitute. This confirmed, what I had read. So I tried an eGo with a few tobacco an menthol liquids: Good enough!
The real turning point was, when I started to explore the plethora of other flavours. i increasingly preferred vaping to smoking. And when my last pack of cigarettes was gone, I decided to complete the switch.
It might have been a bit different, if the local brand of cigarettes, that had a distinct taste I liked, were still around. but that died decades ago. Now I only smoked for the nicotine. And I could get that now much more pleasantly.
Maybe because I stubbornly refused to succumb to the indoctrination of "Smok(e/ing/er) = Baaad", the smell of smoke still doesn't bother me. I still got some ashtrays and when a smoking friend visits me, he can still light up in here. No problem.
Several months ago i tried a cigarette.Well, it wasn't as disgusting as other vapers report their experience, but the taste was vastly inferior to vaping.
So, when a smoker asks me about it, of course I'm enthusiastic about it and encourage him to try it for himself. But what works for me like a charm, can be totally different for them. No need to become a fanatic missionary.
As a dual user three months, I would say that the worst thing I've experienced with ex-smoking vapers is the derogatory remarks some make about their former pastime, usually to make a point of disassociating themselves from their recent past. For example, referring to cigarettes as 'stinkies' (a bit rich if you've ever experienced the aroma of melon flavoured e-liquid) is somewhat unbecoming, especially when one considers that vapers themselves have become victims of unwarranted prejudice.
In light of this, you'd think that they'd try and keep the smoking community on side, rather than abandoning their roots. As I've mentioned elsewhere, when the battle lines are finally drawn, who are more likely to join forces with the vapers; smokers or anti-smokers?
As for the comment above about drinking the 'real thing', well, I could easily say the same thing about tobacco. Why smoke prefab snouts when you can smoke additive free, whole leaf tobacco?
One thing that never seems to get mentioned is the quality of the paper used to make cigarettes. For experimental purposes I bought a tubing machine just to see how whole leaf tobacco prefabs tasted compared to my usual cardboard roach and pure hemp paper combination. No contest. Besides the difference in flavour, the smell that regular tobacco paper emits had a far more acrid aroma that tends to hang around longer than most rolling papers do.
On a final note, I see the advent of the e-cigarette as an effective weapon against the smoking Apartheid that we've had to endure for over seven years. Of course, many anti-smokers can only see it as a method of cheating the system but when a system is introduced in a deceptive manner, they can have little room for complaint.
Get the feeling that some people end up parotting what's been shoved down their throat for x amount of years. 'smokers are dirty' etc etc
I'm sorry Peter had to deal with that vaper. I seem to be in a minority here (probably elsewhere too), but I smoked for over 50 years, have been vaping for almost 2, and I have absolutely nothing against smokers or anything about them! If someone chooses to smoke, that's his, and only his, choice to make. I have always loved the smell of tobacco smoke, and I still do. (Stale butts in an ashtray is something else, but that's not what we're discussing here.) I would much rather be around smoke than air fresheners, scented dryer sheets, most perfumes, etc.
It makes me sad, and angry, to see smokers put down by anyone. But as stated in an earlier comment, some people are arseholes, be they smokers, vapers, or neither. I see us -- smokers and vapers -- as confronting a common foe. We shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves!
I think Peter came face to face with what I term a "born again vaper". These creatures forget they ever enjoyed smoking to the point of denial. Scratch that. Beyond the point of denial.
I'm sure I'm not alone in having seen this coming; when vapers started to refer to cigarettes as "stinkies"… that was when my alarm bells began to ring. The sooner people realize that the smokers' battle is the vapers' battle, and as vice versa as you want to make that, the better. We should be… no, we need to be… on the same side.
Never forget your roots, don't be so up your own ass that you deny the place you came from. The overwhelming majority, almost to the point of exclusivity, of vapers were smokers. I may be paraphrasing here, but MLK once said something along the lines of when we came here we were robbed of our names, robbed of our religion, robbed of our language, and some of us by the way we act… we even lost our minds.
The moral is, don't become so radicalized and evangelical that you forget why you have that weird battery powered device in your purse. You might also want to remember that some of us may return to smoking if/ when our so called governments see fit to steal our alternatives from us. Just saying.
**Khalid Abdul Muhammad. not MLK. We have wine here. Which will no doubt be banned next.
For myself, I think there is room for all. I'll elaborate:
I was a cigarette/ cigar/ pipe smoker for the better part of 25 years. Cigarettes are in a different category from cigars and pipes, it's the inhalation factor, and it's the singular element I was seeking to eliminate.
I love my pipe, and still puff away when an opportunity presents itself; like a cigar you need a block of time to enjoy it properly, whereas cigarettes are generally a "quick nicotine dose" that can be sucked down in 3 minutes. While I love my vaping (and I do!) I recognize it for what it is - a surrogate cigarette. It's the quick-dose, somewhat tasty nicotine dose that doesn't clog my lungs with ash and tar.
Simply put, you can't compare/ contrast pipes/cigars against e-cigs because they occupy two very different niches, it's an apples/oranges comparison. Pipes and cigars are instruments of reflection and enjoyment, the flavor of a vape doesn't develop as you smoke it like a pipe does; the liquids aren't a curated art like tobacco making is, nor does it have the storied history of tobaccos (old baccys like Sam Gawith's 1792 come to mind.)
Vapes DO, however, directly compete with cigarettes. And the words "I love the smoke off the other end of this cigarette, it's awesome" said no cigarette smoker ever, including me. I don't outright hate the smell, but pipes and cigars have a distinct flavor element developed sometimes over centuries, whereas cigarettes are much like the old Catholic Indulgences - paper for burning and little more.
As I think I’ve mentioned on here before, I’ve had a try of a couple of e-cigs but, ironically, I just physically can’t “do” vaping because it makes me choke. Not just a little cough, either – a real, right-up-from-the-guts, wheezy hack that leaves me, literally, fighting for breath! So it’s not for me. I confess that the models I’ve tried have largely been the cheapie lookalike types and I know there are lots of much more sophisticated devices out there that I might find I could inhale but those I’ve been shown so far just look like such a lot of paraphernalia! I confess I’d just be too embarrassed to lug around all that equipment around like some kind of chronic asthmatic, gasping for my “steamer tank,” every half-hour. Ditto the long pen-type e-cigs (why on earth are they always black, and why are they so HUGE??) which make people look like they are doing a bad impression of the old actor Timmy Thomas who always used quite a lengthy cigarette holder. The other thing is that even the cigarette lookalike types are so enormously heavy! It just isn’t a relaxing pastime when you have to clutch the wretched thing between your teeth just to stop it falling onto the ground! I won’t be trying any others for a few years yet – I’ll wait until the technology has developed something that is as convenient and as light as a cigarette, which can be carried around in a cigarette-looking box, and which genuinely looks like smoking rather than something that looks like a trick pen designed to make people laugh. I don't even light the blue or green lights at the end - if I'm going to pretend I'm smoking when I'm actually not, I want people to believe it!
And – how’s this for ironic – I find the smell of e-cig vapour absolutely vile. I can smell it well after the steam has vanished and the vaper long left the room - sickly, sweet, heavily-perfumed and smothering. Again, I’ll wait until some clever e-cig manufacturer designs one which smells like genuine cigarette smoke before I start making my house smell like a candy-floss factory! So it doesn’t look like I’ll be joining your club any time soon, vapers - at least not until the designers realise that for some of us, the experience of vaping has got to be as good as, or better than, real smoking, rather than just a (currently) legal, second-rate substitute. I appreciate that for some people vaping is just as good as smoking, but for me it simply doesn't "work" at all, on any level. Sorry!
Me too, Jax, I'm afraid, and I've given e-cigs a good try.
I vape and my wife still smokes. Doesn't mean I love her any less. I smoked 40 years and can understand her. For a hit we go outside of home TOGETHER. I was allowed to vape at home, but never do it at the presence of grandchildren.
That's precisely how I look at it. To the letter.
I don't think you're in a minority, I do try to tell people like Peter that vapers I have met are perfectly tolerant of smoking and smokers. Those who aren't are the minority in my experience (though the vaping forums can be disappointing at times).
I think there are a lot of similarities between pipe smoking and vaping, perhaps more than with cigarettes IMO. The nicotine is absorbed in the mouth cavity, for example, just like a pipe and vaping is also similar to pipe smoking in that many people vape occasional puffs over a longer period of time. Again, more like pipe smoking than a cigarette where puffs are taken until it runs out.
Thanks for putting my post on here Dick - I have just been through all the comments and the only problem I have, is that they all seem so sensible and considerate that they do not leave me with anyone to have a go at (don't you get any nasties on here?)
One of the commenters did ask when and where the term "stink" or "stinkers" first emerged from and when. They might be interested to read a piece I wrote in 2007 entitled "The Stink" - http://peterthurgood-thetruth.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/stink.html
I have to log off for a while and try to get a little more work done but will certainly be returning later to hopefully take a bit more active part in this debate.
I wonder how many vapers would have vaped if they had been around pre ban? Would they have taken it up for the 'sake of their health' or the 'stink' only? If they were not around pre ban, why? (rhetorical question)
Imo, they have only taken off because of the ban and the accompanying attempt at demormalisation. Had this not been around, neither would they along with this silly bitchiness.
For all of this, blame Blair's 'third sector', taxpayer funded, parasites.
I certainly would have switched anyway. Just for the better taste. But I also doubt, the developement itself would have happened in the first place.
I am an inveterate smoker I love smoking I have no intentions of quitting any time soon and have smoked for 38 years. I don't mind e cigs and have tried them, but personally they don't do it for me, I agree with the comment *feel of a cigarette or a cigar is soft and warm to the touch, and the flavour and aroma is real and fantastic, whereas an e-cig is a piece of cold plastic with steam puffing out the end and no wonderful aromas at all* that is how I feel about smoking, I don't hold vapers in contempt I believe in live and let live and if they are happy with e cigs then fair play. As long as I am not being berated badgered and belittled for my tobacco preferences by vapers. It seems to me that Vapers are coming under increasing pressure from the same idiot knob heads who attack smokers, merely because their choice is tobacco esque, which of course is nonsensical in itself. But thats the society we now live in sadly. No freedom of personal choice and the nanny state telling us exactly what to do, how long before we all have to wear a uniform.
I believe that the way interfering busy bodying government puppets and WHO, amongst others, have demanded change in what is in cigarettes, the amount of nicotine, tar, etc and I think this is what has changed the smell. After all, to me and my hubby, every brand of cigarette tastes about the same! Even Marlborough which used to have a really distinctive flavour now tastes the same as any other cigarette! We actually tried this by mixing Marlborough in with another brand and without looking we couldn't tell which one we were smoking!
So, not only are we being hounded out of society we are also having choice taken away in terms of preferred strength and flavour! Of course, the puppet idiots have not yet cottoned on to the fact that less strength equals more smoked!
Nonsmokers are simply people that do not smoke. There are nonsmokers that like the aroma of tobacco smoke and there are plenty more that are not fussed one way or the other. Antismokers, on the other hand, are a
different mentality altogether. Antismokers hate [tobacco] smoke/smoking/smokers. There’s even a name that’s been given to this hatred of smoke that probably originated in the antismoking fanaticism in America a century ago – “misocapnist”. Even with the antismoking barrage of the last 30
years, antismokers are still a small group. So, to get their way with legislators they typically hijack the entire nonsmokers group, pretending to
speak for all nonsmokers. The history of antismoking is that antismokers will
hijack anything – science, religion, history, language – to depict their
bizarre hatred as “normal”. It’s rabid antismokers that are neurotic bigots.
It’s antismokers that find tobacco smoke as “obnoxious”…. that it “stinks”. It’s antismokers’ subjective experience that they then depict as “objective”. And then follows the “filthy”, “disgusting”, “dirty” barrage. Antismokers’ hyper-reactivity to tobacco smoke is inordinate, disproportionate; many react to even a whiff of smoke as if they’re being led to the gallows.
Even their vocabulary in describing smoke is terribly exaggerated – they have to negotiate “walls” or “tunnels” or “clouds” of smoke as if they’re navigating through a hail of bullets and bombs. Just spend a little time with a rabid antismoker and it becomes quickly apparent that they can’t be reacting to the physical properties of smoke. They seem to be troubled minds projecting their significant inner turmoil (fear/hate) onto smoke. And the State/authorities have approved such projection onto smoke/smoking/smokers.
State-sponsored inflammatory propaganda concerning tobacco smoke promotes irrational belief, fear and hatred on a mass scale. The
fear-mongering has produced a nocebo effect (e.g., anxiety disorder,
hypochondria, somatization) in the gullible. Again, I refer you to this short
but useful video on the nocebo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4&feature=youtu.be&a
I totally agree.
However, if more people wrote, with no holds barred, emails to their MPs, there is a chance, slim though it might be, that something will get through their amazingly thick skulls! Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
It is the apathetic people that shrug their shoulders and say 'well, there is nothing we can do about it' that really annoy me. If we all sit back and to nothing, then no, nothing will change, except for the worse!
I have recently written a few letters to my MP, one of 3 pages which was a direct attack on politicians and politics in general, reminding them, in no uncertain terms, that they are our SERVANTS and NOT our MASTERS. I also suggested they butt out of our personal lives as our lifestyle choices were none of their business.
The more they get bombarded, the sooner they might just start to take some note, especially when there is less than a year to the election!
I also copy the letters to UKIP - if nothing else, it lets them know how I feel and the best responses I have received have been from UKIP.
Come on guys and gals, get emailing!
One of the problems that has allowed antismoking fanaticism to run rampant is that most are not familiar at all with the history of antismoking. It’s America that’s popularized antismoking insanity – again, and which other countries are following suit. The problem with Americans is that they are clueless to even their own recent history. America has a terrible history with this sort of “health” fanaticism/zealotry/extremism or “clean living” hysteria – including antismoking - that goes back more than a century.
Antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid, 400+ year history, much of it
predating even the pretense of a scientific basis or the more recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”. Antismoking crusades typically run on inflammatory propaganda, i.e., lies, in order to get law-makers to institute bans. Statistics and causal attribution galore are conjured. The current antismoking rhetoric has all been heard before. All it produces is irrational fear and hatred, discord, enmity, animosity, social division, oppression, and bigotry. One of the two major antismoking (and anti-alcohol, dietary prescriptions/proscriptions, physical exercise) crusades early last century was in America. [The other crusade was in Nazi Germany and the two crusades were intimately connected by physician-led eugenics]. The USA has been down this twisted, divisive path before. Consider the following: The bulk of claims made about smoking/tobacco were erroneous, baseless, but highly inflammatory. Unfortunately, the propaganda did its destructive job in the short term, producing mass hysteria or a bigotry bandwagon. When supported by the State, zealots seriously mess with people’s minds on a mass scale.
http://www.americanheritage.com/content/thank-you-not-smoking
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19981129&slug=2786034
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352989/pdf/bmj00571-0040.pdf
Exactly, we are all different, thankfully, and what rocks one persons' boat will not, necessarily rock anothers.
It is about time that government, etc, realised that we will never fit into the little square boxes they are trying to fit us into BECAUSE we are all different and that is exactly how it should be.
I don't blame him for being against ecigs. I've noticed on vaping forums a substantial proportion of vapers appear to despise smokers and smoking - their talk about "stinkies": how the smell of tobacco makes them feel ill and how they no longer stink, which I find bizarre, as they themselves were all, until recently, smokers. And these same people seem completely ignorant of all the issues surrounding the smoking ban - why it was really brought in; and naively think they are now safe, having changed sides. Modern cigarettes don't smell great, but I've always liked the smell of roll ups and pipe tobacco As Dick says, if you keep telling people Chanel No 5 stinks, they'll eventually believe it. In the USA there are anti perfume campaign groups. Peter, you have my sympathy. I'd never refuse a cigarette, and on holiday, I revert back to smoking for a fortnight. If smoking were cheaper and less harmful, I'd prefer it to vaping.
One of the problems that has allowed antismoking fanaticism to run rampant is that most are not familiar at all with the history of antismoking. It’s America that’s popularized antismoking insanity – again, and which other countries are following suit. The problem with Americans is that they are clueless to even their own recent history. America has a terrible history with this sort of “health” fanaticism/zealotry/extremism or “clean living” hysteria – including antismoking - that goes back more than a century.
Antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid, 400+ year history, much of it predating even the pretense of a scientific basis or the more recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”. Antismoking crusades
typically run on inflammatory propaganda, i.e., lies, in order to get
law-makers to institute bans. Statistics and causal attribution galore are
conjured. The current antismoking rhetoric has all been heard before. All it
produces is irrational fear and hatred, discord, enmity, animosity, social
division, oppression, and bigotry. One of the two major antismoking (and
anti-alcohol, dietary prescriptions/proscriptions, physical exercise) crusades
early last century was in America. [The other crusade was in Nazi Germany and the two crusades were intimately connected by physician-led eugenics]. The USA has been down this twisted, divisive path before. Consider the following: The bulk of claims made about smoking/tobacco were erroneous, baseless, but highly inflammatory. Unfortunately, the propaganda did its destructive job in the short term, producing mass hysteria or a bigotry bandwagon. When supported by the State, zealots seriously mess with people’s minds on a mass scale.
http://www.americanheritage.com/content/thank-you-not-smoking
“Cigarette Wars: The ‘Triumph’ of the Little White Slaver”
(1998) by Cassandra Tate. Google the following combination - “the endless war on tobacco” “seattletimes” – which should bring up a summary article of the book at the Seattle Times. [can’t provide the link or comment will not post]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352989/pdf/bmj00571-0040.pdf
'Vile' is a bit OTT Jax! There are plenty of smells, even in houses, that are worse than e-cig vapour and tobacco smoke. Dogs don't usually smell of candy floss (though some look like it...).
I dabble with vaping but it doesn't 'hit the spot' in a number of ways. Both the lookalikes and the tank gadgets. And they do look a bit silly. In fact, I don't use them in public any more - I don't want to be perceived as a wannabe quitter. I mean, what do they really offer, other than nicotine and fake smoke? Definitely not the sheer pleasure of the real thing (though I know many reading this will disagree)
Maybe you belong to the small group of people who have a problem with propylene glycol (PG). Do you have the same kind of problem with theatrical fog (disco, concert, etc.)? That basically the same stuff.
There is an alternative base: vegetable glycerol (VG)
It seldom used exclusively, because that has some disadvantages devlivering the flaours. Those disposable, prefilled usually don't offer a choice and often are a mixture. You would need to try a tank system with liquids that is based on VG (+water) only. Maybe you can find a local vape store or experienced vapor who'll let you sample this.
Good question Frank. Ecigs would exist, as they were invented in China when China had no bans. Older smokers would probably have switched in small numbers due to health considerations, but the ban also had a big impact. I reckon the ban was more the reason for me. My work ban came in around 2004, which was bad enough. The pub ban in 2007 was the last straw. I initially anticipated vaping at work then going back to smoking in the evening.
The current antismoking crusade, very much in the eugenics tradition –
involving the same medically-aligned personnel and repugnant methodology, is much like crusades over the previous 400 years. It is a moralizing, social-engineering, eradication/prohibition crusade decided upon in the 1970s by a small, self-installed clique of [medically-oriented] fanatics operating under the auspices of the World Health Organization and sponsored by the American Cancer Society (see the Godber Blueprint http://www.rampant-antismoking.com ). This little, unelected group, using much the same inflammatory rhetoric of its fanatical predecessors, decided for everyone that tobacco-use should be
eradicated from the world – for a “better” (according to them) world. These
fanatics were speaking of secondhand smoke “danger” and advocating indoor and OUTDOOR smoking bans years before the first study on SHS, and extortionate taxes on tobacco years before contrived “cost burden” analyses of smoking: In the 1970s, populations – particularly in relatively free societies – weren’t interested in elitist social-engineering, particularly by a group (medically-aligned) that had a horrible recent track record (eugenics). Given that their antismoking crusade would have otherwise stalled, the zealots conjured secondhand smoke “danger” to advance the social-engineering agenda, i.e., inflammatory propaganda. Until only recently the zealots claimed they weren’t doing social engineering, that they weren’t moralizing. Well, that’s a lie that’s been told many times over the last few decades.
The zealots’ goal this time is not to ban the sale of tobacco but to ban
smoking in essentially all the places that people smoke (combined with
extortionate taxes), indoors and out. Up until recently the social-engineering
intent has been masqueraded as protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke “danger”. But even this fraud can no longer be hidden in that bans are now being instituted for large outdoor areas such as parks, beaches, campuses where there is no demonstrable “health” issue for nonsmokers. This dangerous mix of the medically-aligned attempting social engineering is a throwback to a century ago. We seem to have learned nothing of value from very painful lessons of only the recent past.
I'm what is known as a 'dual-user', although I don't really use my e-cig very much, as I really prefer the real thing (as in roll-ups - I don't much like 'ready-mades', and usually decline when I'm offered one). For me, e-cigs are a useful substitute when I'm in a strict non-smoking situation for any length of time. However, if this obsession with banning smoking everywhere didn't pertain, I probably wouldn't bother. For me, they are an inferior, albeit very clever substitute.
Part of my problem with the vaping community is the fact that when I go on vaping forums, it is obvious that the majority there have bought, hook, line and sinker, all the anti-smoking propaganda, and they give the impression that by moving to e-cigs, they have 'crossed the floor', and are now aligned with the approved-of (and thus socially acceptable) majority, rather than the stigmatised minority. There is a palpable smugness in the tone of their posts, and an inference that they are superior to smokers of 'analogue' cigarettes. As someone who rejects (with good reason as a result of my researches) most of the claims of the deleterious health effects of smoking that are pumped out by the anti-smoking lobby, I feel no urge for reasons of health to move to vaping. I rather doubt that there is a great advantage, health-wise, of vaping over smoking, current rhetoric notwithstanding.
I find it hard to understand the references to the 'stink' of cigarette smoke, too. As a child, I loved the smell of tobacco smoke. My parents, both non-smokers, always had a cigarette box and ashtrays for guests, and I don't remember them ever mentioning anything about the smell when we had smoking guests round, apart from my mother saying how much she liked the smell of the aromatic Dutch pipe tobaccos. Old ashtrays, if not cleaned, well yes they do stink. As does stale beer when you open up a bar in the morning. Which leads me on to another thing. I haven't been into a UK pub in several years, but I remember when in UK a few years ago going to a few pubs, and noticing that they smelled awful. A mixture of stale beer and urine. They never used to smell like that before the smoking ban.
I've smoked for more than 50 years, apart from a couple of periods of a year or so when I stopped. During those periods of abstinence, far from coming to dislike the smell of smoke, I had the reverse reaction. Someone smoking a cigarette was to me the sweetest aroma imaginable, and is, I'm sure, why I started smoking again both times.
Thanks for finding that. :)
- paper for burning and little more.
That's certainly the the smell from (almost all?) commercial cigarettes.
Potassium or sodium citrate in the paper for continual burning.
A bit like selling spirits with a porous lid once opened, evapourate.
Made worse by rolling over to TC demands for RIP glue bands or what to slow burning - untested at the time, since showing urine chemicals when tests done later. Do they care? No...
Sheer greed I wonder, but in high price days in my opinion it's insane to buy a stinky-paper ersartz tobacco 'glamour package' brand pack vs a selected RYO pouch and clean-burning papers.
(Unless from somewhere like http://natsherman.com/ I guess!)
It's easily demonstrated - just break off the filter, slit the paper to drop the tobacco on to a clean surface (you can re-roll with a clean-burning RYO paper for comparison later) and then light one corner of the resultant ragged factory made paper, and observe...
a slowly burning edge with quite a lot of smoke - wave it under anybodies nose, yourself, any hardened smoker or innocent -
involuntory recoil... this is the stench anti & non smokers hate.
Reminiscient of a school-yard incinerator, perhaps... not that nice!
Yet still I agree that it's also true that people have been propagandised to dislike it, believe it harmful etc. But I think the product may well have worsened in outside taste, smell, over years.
Observe a clean-burning RYO paper the same way (they vary country to country, some better than others by far) - you will see a "phumph" of almost no smoke and no ash...
I won't smoke a "tailor" or 'factory-made' cigarette, though I love good RYO;- and even in emergency re-rolled it's just dry esatz...
Mind you, it seems RYO is rare in say SE Asia;- people are used to commercial cigarettes and don't seem to notice when in them...
And therefore obvlivious to the 'stink'.
Good RYO in clean-burning papers is closer to real tobacco.
I love a good pipe tobacco even more, but very expensive here now.
In NZ.
On pipe tobaccos - "room note" is one of the ratings on the wonderfully comprehensive and varied reviews at
http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/
Children have been “taught” antismoking since the 1970s. The secondhand smoke “danger” barrage started in the early 1980s.
For those that don’t believe that their thinking has been addled by incessant inflammatory propaganda, go view movies/documentaries
pre-1990s. Smoking was widespread. People didn’t go screaming out of rooms barking that they were being exposed to ambient tobacco smoke. People didn’t hand-wave at nearby smoke. People didn’t cup their hands over their mouths on passing a smoker. It just didn’t happen. That’s the historical record. Tobacco smoke was a background phenomenon. Smokers and nonsmokers got along just fine. Antismokers were few and far between.
There were people back in those days that quit smoking for whatever reason. They didn’t become rabid antismokers. They typically still socialized
with smokers [in close proximity]. They were pretty much like they were before; they simply didn’t smoke.
Then came the current antismoking crusade where antismokers were given the opportunity to “educate” the public with State support. And guess what? They’ve turned a segment of society into rabid antismokers as well.
Now tobacco smoke has been manufactured into a critical foreground phenomenon that must be fervently avoided, ideally through bans. Smokers are depicted as “addicts” that must be rescued from their folly. It’s a standard moralizing crusade. Non-smoking has been manufactured into a moral “virtue”, smoking as moral depravity. Antismokers believe they are superior beings that should be protected from being contaminated by smokers or their smoke. Yet scrutinize how antismokers operate and it’s they who are the moral frauds that carry complexes
of mental dysfunction and that spout a toxic vocabulary. Let there be someone smoking and many now can’t help themselves. They must pass moral judgment. It’s fakery. It’s a critical symptom of the time. It’s a moral substitute for societies that are not doing well morally.
There are pubs/restaurants that have open indoor fireplaces and lit candles on tables. These sources of smoke attract no negative attention
– as it should be. Yet let someone light up a cigarette in the same
surroundings and there are people that will degenerate to histrionics,
screeching that their lives are in immediate peril. This is mental dysfunction.
Whereas there were always ashtrays available even in nonsmoking households, there are now very, very few households that allow
smoking in their homes. And smokers, crest-fallen, apologetically take their “vile” habit outside, even in their own homes.
Which brings us to the e-gizmoists. Unfortunately, as with some others commenting, the experience I’ve had with vapers is that they are
essentially antismokers [I’m sure there are exceptions]. They spout the
standard antismoking propaganda to support their choice. Some even go so far as to claim that the e-gizmos will completely replace tobacco use in the near future. Interestingly, they seem to believe that Tobacco Control is capable of lying but only about e-gizmos. They’re finding out that the propaganda machine set up to denormalize smoking/smokers is also aimed at them.
Antismoking is but a symptom of a dominant framework that implicates some very serious failures, e.g., Public Health being used as an
instrument of lifestyle “engineering”, that foment fear and hate to advance an ideological agenda. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been on a comments board trying to tease out some of these issues, e.g., employment
discrimination, apartment smoking bans, when some vaper nitwit will come on and comment that all the problems are solved if only smokers switched to e-gizsmos. It’s just a stupid distraction.
Concerning the “stink”. I believe that the “fire safe” cigarettes do produce a more pungent smell. But the “stink” propaganda started way before this cigarette design….. way back in the 80s.
“Stink” has been a part of denormalizing propaganda:
Markers of Denormalization
Smokers as malodourous
Smokers as litterers
Smokers as unattractive and undesirable housemates
Smokers as undereducated and a social underclass
Smokers as excessive users of public health services
Smokers as employer liabilities
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/17/1/25
“Stink” is a strategy. It’s heavily played on, regardless of whether there is malodor or not, because there are smokers that become quite self-conscious about “odour”.
Here’s a recent article further promoting the “strategy”:
New strategy: Tell smokers they stink
Forget their health, aim at their vanity – research suggests
smokers who are told they stink are more likely to quit the habit.
In findings that are to be published in the prestigious Journal of Smoking
Cessation, an Auckland University
research team reveals insights into the real reasons that prompt smokers to
quit and shows how quit campaigns are wide of the mark.
The survey – “Do New Zealand
Maori and Pacific walk the talk when it comes to stopping smoking? A
qualitative study of motivation to quit” – finds that questioning the personal
hygiene of smokers may be a significant motivator.
One of the report’s authors, Dr Marewa Glover, said campaigns with the
primary purpose of triggering quit attempts should include more emotionally
loaded reasons, such as “it stinks”.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10911018
You've certainly elaborated on and backed up what I said earlier about the quality of the paper having a significant influence on the taste and aroma of a smoke.
Once I sampled 100% tobacco leaf with top quality rolling papers, there was no chance of ever returning to prefab snouts.
These were the comments on a board by an antismoking astro-turfer playing on the “stink strategy”:
“subject to the foul stench of someone else's addiction”
“without having to be subject to the hideous stink of a smoker's disgusting effluent.”
“stink-up our collective atmospheric commons”
“I just DON'T WANT TO SMELL THAT STENCH.”
“to the effluent of their foul-smelling habit over the freedom of the (majority) non-smokers to breathe air that isn't hideously
awful-smelling.”
“Cigarette smoke is by far the worst stench I am routinely subject to”
“to avoid their dreadful, disgusting, hideous stink.”
“you smell really, really bad. I mean dog's vomit bad”
“I don't want to be subject to your stench. Anywhere. Ever.”
“You subjecting me to your gag-inducing stench whenever I go
for a walk”
It’s all made up – liar - or the commenter is seriously neurotic.
It wasn't anything planned. I never planned to quit with E-Cigs, I just gave them a try and 4 years later I like them. In light of all the dark forces against smokers and now and nearly worse the scrutiny applied to a less harmful product, I can only say what would benefit all not just one or the other.. If I don't like the smell of smoke, I can complain and enjoy the consequences of that behavior, or I can remove myself from it and just be glad I am still free enough to have any choice in the matter. Vaping changed life, I regained a sense of smell and taste. I do not like the smell of burning cigarettes at all anymore, not that I ever did, because even during the 43 years of smoking if I was downwind of a cigarette burning, I moved, I don't like smoke in my eyes etc., ,,,,,, It's up to each person how tolerant they wish to be and choices on dealing with it. Smoke and Vaping is under attack and there is strength in numbers.
Part of the attraction for me is trying out all the different flavours. I've also used vaping as a way of cutting down the amount of needless stuffing my face with food in the evening.
As for being perceived as a wannabe quitter, when I place my tobacco, papers and snuff on the table next to my vapouriser, I doubt that anybody thinks they're just for show.
However, I can see that vaping isn't for the self-conscious, a bit like mobile phones were in their infancy.
Indeed, a fair few reformed vapers like to trot out the old anti-smoking chestnuts (kills half its users, needed a shower after a night out around smokers), whilst at the same time defending themselves against anti-vaping rhetoric.
Interesting point about how smoking in the home has changed since the introduction of the smoking Apartheid. Prior to this hardly anyone would prohibit someone from smoking in their house because, quite simply, they knew that it would make them look like a cunt. Once the Apartheid became government approved, banning guests from smoking in your home suddenly became justifiable for some people. So basically, the government endorsed cuntish behaviour whilst removing the shame that it would have previously caused.
As for smokers forcing themselves out of their own homes to smoke, that's scarier than anything tobacco could ever do to the human body.
One similarity is the fetishisation of the nicotine delivery devices. Whenever I read, or see a photo, of someone's collection of beautifully engineered vaping devices, I think of a rack of ornate pipes. When I was a very young boy, I would clean and fill my grandfathers pipe for him, and never get the packing of the tobacco quite right. Vaping involves similar trial and error tasks, with batteries, tanks, wicks, flavours etc.
Fair enough, but they still look a bit silly. Particularly the larger varieties with tanks (a bit like mobile phones in their infancy)
;)
There are in fact disposable and rechargable "soft" cigar style "ecigs"
Regarding "modern" cigarettes Jonathan - I have noticed that they don't smell as good as they used to - but I smoke Spanish cigarettes, which only contain 100% pure tobacco, no chemicals at all, and believe me, they do smell good. I buy enough each time I go to Spain to keep me supplied throughout the year.
With regard to Chanel No 5 perfume - I am afraid that I really do believe it stinks, along with nearly every other perfume - but I wouldn't ask my wife to go outside to wear it - I wouldn't dare!
We ought not to forget that our sense of smell is essentially a warning device - witness the attempts of animals in the wild to run away when they smell smoke in the atmosphere, and how dogs and cats invariably take of good sniff of food before they eat it. It is essential, therefore, that the sense of smell should be very sensitive, and it is. But the sensitivity is short lived. The sensors in our noses very quickly 'fill up' so that you very quickly cease to notice the smell that you first became aware of. Thus, a person walking into a pub before the ban would notice ALL the aromas in that place, including the tobacco smoke smell, and would almost immediately put the aromas on one side in his mind. They are what he expects. And, after a few minutes, he would not smell the aromas at all.
One of crazy things about complaints of the smell of tobacco has been claims that, when a person gets home, he has to put all his clothes in the wash and have a shower. How can he become suddenly aware of a terrible stink which he has not been aware for hours, and which his sense of smell has been desensitised to?
At the moment, I have a puritane e-cig which I 'won' in DP's draw. I've tried it and it is quite nice. I also have a 'screwdriver' e-cig which is not very efficient. I hardly ever use it.
I have no real opinion on vapers and vaping - personal choice is all important. I defend vapers and vaping whenever the opportunity presents. But vapers should be aware that stopping does not immediately cure all the propaganda induced ailments, if indeed they actually exist. According to the Doctors Study, it takes ten years or longer for the risks of having smoked for, say, twenty year to dissipate - that is, provided that you survive long enough for the risks to dissipate!
That was a shameless plug!
I'd charge him commission for that one, DP! :¬))
"So basically, the government endorsed cuntish behaviour ..."
The state generally does. Nanny state laws are designed to pander to the anti-social, intolerant and spiteful. Also, check out how many articles you read per week about some killjoy council banning something a majority enjoy because of a single anonymous complainant.
"I find the smell of e-cig vapour absolutely vile"
You'd like the pear drop flavour I'm vaping at the moment, it's lush. ;)
He's a slick one, ain't he? ;)
What I find disappointing is that vapers used Tobacco Control rhetoric, which we know is unsafe. I just hope the success of vaping is not used to ban tobacco altogether. Think they won't try that?
Lets cut the waffle,mutter and yapping about Vaping
The adherents of this craze were and remain runners ,appeasers and cringers
at first gloating on their immunity from the restrictive ban,now whimpering as
they fall foul of the Pharma hit squads
They now join the multitude of limp wristed smoking damp squids who have spent the last 7 years chuddering in doorways and backyards,truly a fluttering of budgies rather than a gathering of Eagles
Even the ragged tramps in the anti fracking tribe have muscled more attention
than 10 million smokers and 60,000 publicans.
When those who cry liberty are prepared to DO rather than CROAK ,only
then will notice be taken.
In the meanwhile ...carry on hiding and muttering.
As Dick mentions elsewhere, I would probably compare vaping to pipe smoking. Indeed, I did add a pipe to my tobacco portfolio a couple of years ago but missed the inhalation. Thing was, I probably didn't fit your average pipe smoking profile, so was probably more self conscious of doing that than I am vaping.
It probably still looks unusual because and I reluctantly use Tobacco Control parlance, not as much effort has been put into normalising vaping as has been put into denormalising smoking.
Honestly when I was a smoker I felt the same way. But after just a couple weeks, my tastebuds and my sense of smell came back. As a smoker, you really don't realize how badly you smell. Like cat owners who think theirs don't stink. Its a sad reality.
You've obviously misunderstood the whole basis of the e-cig marketing campaign, DP.
Pear drop flavours were specifically developed to lure cheeldren into a lifetime of addiction. That's their raison d'être.
They weren't meant for grown-ups. Grown-ups don't use those sorts of flavours. They don't like them.
I'm glad someone came here to prove Peter's point. ;)
So I won't love the blackcurrant and liquorice I've got lined up next either then? Aww.
Or perhaps it's a compliment and they think I'm actually 17. ;)
I've been a vaper for about 16 months now after 26 years of PAD smoking, and in that time have moved from el cheapo plastic clearo's and basic ego batteries to large, intricate, ornate and frankly beautiful mods made from fine grade stainless steel and shined to a mirror finish.
I've also been anosmic for the best part of 20 years due to a chemical accident. Well I say accident, more misfortune. Well, I say misfortune, I really mean imbecilic stupidity on my part. When you want to identify a can of random chemicals on a shelf, sticking your nose into it and taking a huge inhale is not a good idea, mkay? But anyway, I digress.
It would be remarkably hypocritical of me to sneer at the smoker I used to be, or to in any way want to limit their choice. If you want to smoke, knock yourself out sunshine, but know what you're missing. I now consider vaping to be the "gold standard". I would never go back to cigarettes, as frankly its a huge downgrade. I cant tell you if you stink for the reasons explained above, and why would it matter to me? Its entirely subjective - as a smoker, before the "accident", I actually really enjoyed the smell of stale tobacco smoke. Its one of the most evocative smells I ever encountered, so why would I ever look down my nose at someone who has yet to upgrade?
As a vaping advocate and activist I also care about smokers rights, as we are, rightly or wrongly, inextricably linked and always will be. Would I encourage people to switch? You betcha. If you were driving round in a 1978 Cortina, I'd encourage you to upgrade too. But that is to enhance your experience, not to deny you a choice.
This is a really good discussion, thank you Dick and Pete for generating it. I personally would like to see it discussed everywhere, preferably IN pubs rather than on the internet, but maybe that's just me?
Just for you, evel.
AN ODE TO THE [“PRECIOUS”] NEUROTIC ANTISMOKING
BIGOTS
An insight into the antismoker mentality and its exaggerated, hysterical, highly inflammatory language that produces claims such
as “…..because people like you [smokers] are so blinkered as to the effect your behaviour has on others.”
I for one, as a smoker, was incredibly blinkered. I had no idea the effect my behavior was having on others. It seems I missed it all. In
years past, there was – apparently – a constant stream of nonsmokers in distress about me; some with blood streaming from their smoke-affected eyes, others semi-conscious, and still others collapsed on the ground, clutching at their throats, gasping for air. In restaurants, there was – apparently - a steady stream of nonsmokers sending their meals back to the kitchen, either unable
to see the plate in front of them due to the thick tobacco smoke that had engulfed them and/or unable to savor food due to smoke-numbed taste-buds. This was – apparently – going on about me all the time. I missed it all for decades and decades. One would have thought that in all those years I would have tripped over a fallen body here and there that might have aroused my suspicion. But, no, I must have just been really “lucky”, getting through it all upright.
There were – apparently – scores of nonsmokers that would leave venues screaming hysterically, tobacco smoke wafting from their hair, clothes and skin, darting about in a frenzied search for the nearest dry-cleaner/shower to remove the “magical mist” lest their quality of life be utterly destroyed. I had no idea.
Apparently, children have been the great victims. I never noticed while smoking in a car with children passengers that the little folk
had become paralyzed; I never noticed that they had turned blue from the toxic cloud of tobacco smoke that had somehow settled, defying the laws of physics, specifically around their heads….. well, that’s if their faces were visible at all through the static wall of smoke. Apparently, if I had only looked more carefully I would have noticed the long queue at hospital emergency wards of selfish smoking parents presenting their limp-bodied children – straight from the car to gurney - for intensive care….. a consequence of smoking in the car with the little critters present: “Doctor, I smoked in the car. Please help my child”. I must admit, I missed it. I obviously also missed the recurring news headline “Children Lost In Car. Cannot Be Located In Rear Seat Due To Tobacco Smoke. Rescue Service Called In To Assist With Search”.
And apparently, as I smoked in people’s homes, shortly thereafter the paint would begin to peel from the walls, the carpet would
disintegrate, goldfish would go belly-up, cats and dogs would lose their hair, and the electricity supply would become inconsistent with occasional sparks from electrical appliances. If I walked down the street smoking a cigarette, apparently plants would wither and the pavement crack, leaving a Moonscape in my wake. I really had no idea.
A thank-you to antismokers for pointing out my “selfishness” and the world according to antismokers.
Puhhhh-leeeez!!
I shall take notice of edicts about alcohol from HMG when they voluntarily take their own advice and reduce their intake (and the subsidy) at the HoC bars. That should buy us some time...
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