Of course! We should have just left it so that when they go to the emergency room for their smoking related health failure, that their healthcare costs just…magically disappear when they can’t pay them! That was so much better! Wait, what do you mean they didn’t magically disappear and instead got passed on to everyone else as higher health care costs?
We’ve had socialized medicine in this country since they decided that emergency rooms HAD to treat people, regardless of whether or not they could pay the bill. Do you think that was wrong? Well, if not, then you really shouldn’t be protesting efforts to make that cost LESS by getting us organized in some fashion. On the other hand, if you believe that people who can’t pay for health care should just die, that’s your right, and then you won’t be a hypocrite for arguing against ‘socialized health care’.
I am an ex-smoker. I smoked 18 years. Except in the beginning years, in my early 20s, I always wanted to quit and knew it was very bad for me. What I don’t understand is smokers who are so defensive, aggressively so, about being smokers. I think anyone with half a grain of sense realizes how bad smoking is for them and would want to quit, and would understand why others are so against it. It’s just common sense. And it does do permanent damage. I now have chronic bronchitis.
However, if someone gets told every time s/he turns around how nasty his/her habit is, I can understand if they get defensive. This doesn’t give that person the right to smoke in a no smoking area, but if someone is smoking in a smoking area, I think that they should be left alone and not lectured about it. I think that most smokers DO realize that it’s a dangerous, smelly habit, but they just don’t want to get a lecture about it every time they light up.
I prefer to make my point in more subtle ways, such as loading a smoker’s cigarette.
I never lecture anyone about it. What I am talking about when saying smokers are defensive, and very agressively and angrily so, is mostly what I read on various forums whenever the topic comes up, including this forum. They go crazy and are very angry and defend smoking and their right to smoke. They may accept is is bad for them, but an awful lot, based on what they write, don’t act like they believe that. They are very adamant that they are being persecuted about their smoking; what they should be doing is agreeing that what they are doing is harmful, not only to them but to people around them, and be honest about it and their addiction, instead of attacking people who don’t believe in smoking and who don’t want to be in places where people are smoking, not just enclosed places either. When I walk down the street and people are walking around with a lit cigarette in their hand, I am always afraid I’m going to get burnt, and I usually get smoke blown in my face. They have no right to do that, imo. They impose on others and are very snarky about it, as if they have every right to make someone else’s life unpleasant. Verbally, I never say anything to anyone about their smoking, I just move away.
I care because health insurance rates are shared by everyone, and smokers jack them up higher than they should be. Bikers who don’t wear helmets do the same. I have a hard time witnessing general stupidity and recklessness, even if there’s no stake in it.
A lot of people take that same “who cares?” attitude toward the natural environment that makes life possible on this planet. Fools like Trump and Pruitt are crippling the EPA’s ability to protect the public from pollution while yammering about “freedom” and “liberty.” Just stupid.
Skipping the usual mandatory zombie references, usually we try not to reawaken old threads (the post before yours was from 2013) unless we’re adding something really new in terms of information and/or opinion. Not a big deal; we all do it sometimes – but in case you ever catch something that looks like a snark (like “the zombie apocalypse will raise health insurance even more”) I want you to know it isn’t anything personal ----- just our habit around here.
Starting a new thread an old one inspires is “better form”. For example, this got me thinking if all the vape stuff and medical marijuana stories have taken some of the stigma away from traditional kinds of smoking. Don’t know if I’ll start a thread or not but the thought ran through my brain as I read through the old posts here.
Teens will do virtually anything to impress their peers and gain their approval. Why else would they put Tide pods in their mouths and bite down on them? Taking up smoking is relatively mild compared to something like that.
I was going to say peer pressure and stress are major factors why people of any age start smoking. They know it’s unhealthy to smoke, but they aren’t making their decision based on whether something is healthy for them or not. After a while they begin to enjoy smoking and in their minds they are cool. As has been pointed out, humans do a lot of of stupid things that are unhealthy. Smoking is just one of those unhealthy things that people do.
Everyone I’ve ever known who smoked had at least one parent who smoked. (I remember thinking about that fact in Health class, when they kept giving us the script for what to say when a friend tried to get us to smoke.) It’s not that the parents tried to get their kids hooked; it’s that they had a pack of cigarettes in their purse or coat, so the kid had easy access. (I remember thinking about that fact when I read about when they got rid of cigarette machines so kids “couldn’t get their hands” on them.)
My dad used to smoke, but quit when his kids were little.
It’s pretty dumb but I’ve been told that the young uns take up vaping nowadays. I nearly died of anxiety at breathing in someones vapy fumes when it happened first as I considered it pure chemicals. I read something about vaping being just as bad for cancer
recently, the invention of something that lets you blow visible air ( think frosty morning breath) will help the vapers quit I guess!!
Nicotine reduces stress and makes it easier to cope with anger and anxiety, and helps suppress appetite.
Also for mentally ill people, nicotine helps rebalance their brain chemistry a bit. Hence smoking rates among the mentally ill are higher.
Granted, all these benefits can be had from safer methods of nicotine administration. Nasal sprays, patches, gum, vape pens, etc.
Having said that, I’ve never smoked more than a handful of times, but I tried smoking nicotine free flavored vape pens. I just like the flavor, but apparently even those can cause lung problems. So I quit doing that.
