fuck smokers.
Literally?
See? Smoking makes us look so cool that everyone wants to fuck us.
What’s not to love?
I think smoking looks cool.
I think it looks cool to tap a cigarette out of a pack, cup it from the wind, light it, blaze a little red cherry, and then blow smoke out through your nose or mouth. I think smokers have cool mannerisms – pulling it to their lips, flicking the ash.
Lest you think I’m going somewhere absurd with this (like I’m going to say “cool to cough up chunks of black lung”), I’m not. I think it looks cool.
I smoked for a few years in high school & college and I loved it. If I found out tomorrow that it didn’t cause cancer, and wasn’t detrimental to my cardio fitness, I’d pick it up again in a second.
I still enjoy the occasional stogie.
A lot of the kids who smoked in High School were real losers, but a lot of the smokers had a much better attitude towards shit than some goody-two-shoes hall-monitor class salutatorian, too.
In conclusion: smoking. . .whatever.
For the same reason people use any other drug, or have unsafe sex, or eat junk food. It gives them a short term payoff and they don’t care about long term consequences. Teenagers are especially susceptible because they are invincible in their own minds, they won’t get sick, become addicted, get old or die, ever. Look at the typical diet of a teenager - you think they care about high cholesterol, diabetes, or heart disease? Why would they care about lung cancer either? Those things are decades away. I smoked as a teen and I didn’t care about disease, I figured I had lots of time to quit later when I was a grown up (I did quit when I was 24.)
It’s also kind of a “safe” way to rebel, IMO. Kids who don’t want to do hard drugs might still want to experiment with something rebellious, so they smoke or drink or drive fast or whatever.
Did you think you were “getting over on the man”?
Not nearly as much as when we did other things, but yeah, probably a little.
No more so than we did when cutting class, doing petty vandalism, parking, general pranksterism, mouthing off to cops, etc.
You weren’t supposed to smoke. I’d have gotten kicked off the soccer team for it. I’d have gotten in trouble by my folks for it.
I don’t know if I ever said that I was “getting over on the man”, but that was probably a part of it. We were fucking 17.
Now see, this is my question. “Kids are very sensitive to manipulation.” And yet, they pay huge corporations run by fat aging white men large amounts of money for the privilege of being the corporation’s slave. Buh? How is that not manipulative? I thought rebel kids were supposed to despise Big Business and doing what the corporations want? How is Big Tobacco not part of the Establishment?
Good luck on your own quitting efforts!
You don’t get anything from government propaganda. When you buy cigarettes, you get cigarettes. It’s hardly the same thing.
A lot of kids seem to eschew pop fashion, but embrace cigarettes. Both are pushed by huge corporations. Is that the rebellion?
I think those programs mentioned fail to stop kids from starting, but I’m not convinced that they encourage it.
It used to be that children of parents who smoke were themselves far more likely to smoke. How conformist can you get? I don’t know if that’s changed.
Kids like to do things their parents don’t want them to do. Even if their parents smoke, I doubt many of them are telling their kids it’s ok for them to do it. If your parents hate that you smoke / what you wear / your friends / your music, that means it is cool because adults don’t get it. Teenagers like to think they are the first ones to discover something, but they are also strongly influenced by fitting in with their peers. They want to rebel, but with other teens. So they rebel against adults.
Rebelling against your parents is actually a good thing, it is the first step in how kids learn independence and how to think for themselves. If they depend on mom and dad to make all their decisions they don’t grow up to be healthy adults either. The problem is then that teens turn to other teens for advice, who are just as stupid as they are 
Maybe I will tell my kids when they are teens that if they smoke, I will too. We can smoke together, all the time! That ought to drive them away from it.
Oh yeah. A whole family of tobacco addicts. That sonds nice!
Yes, I know you were kiding. 
I have asthma, so I hate cigarette and cigar smoke. I don’t understand how anyone could like the smell of those things.
Fuck asthmatics!
Even better, fuck asthmatic smokers!
I have diabetes.
Fuck pastry chefs.
You’re ascribing a motive to the kids and then arguing against your ascription.
It doesn’t matter that a corporation is pushing it, it’s still something you’re not “supposed” to do by your own micro-establishment. . .parents, teachers, coaches, etc.
But, I don’t even think that kids smoke just to be rebels. When I started, some other kid got me to try it. I sort of got a buzz from it. I chased the buzz a few times, and then I started to like it. Even in High School, you start to enjoy having one after meals, having one when you’re drinking. We’d meet before school behind the Elks Club and have a couple smokes. I never thought I was being a rebel.
True, both campaigns are manipulative and both Big Tobacco and Truth are organizations with agendas. I’d argue that one comes from a more honest position than the other, though. By and large, cigarette ads are out in the open. People know who runs them and for what reason. Aside from the restrictions placed on cigarette advertising, it’s really no different from branding campaigns run by non-tobacco brands, and it’s pretty obvious that someone is trying to sell a product.
Meanwhile, the anti-tobacco ads tend to be funded by organizations that are less straightforward. It’s not common knowledge how the American Legacy Foundation is funded. Look on the whudafxup.com website - do you see a disclosure of ownership or any idea of where the information is coming from? It’s hardly transparent. On top of that, the site annoyingly tries (and fails) to speak to young people in a colloquial style. I can easily understand how it sets off bullshit radars.
Thanks. I think I’ve got it beat this time. Once I make it past the first two weeks, the cravings pretty much die down and I’m good to go.
The trick, I’ve discovered, is that you can’t EVER have a cigarette again. EVER. Get drunk at a bar or backyard barbecue and bum a smoke from someone “just for old times’ sake” and you’re as good as hooked again. You’ll buy a pack, and then you’re right back where you started.
If I can avoid that, I’ll stay a non-smoker.
Yeah, hang in there.
True, the cravings diminished greatly with time. But there remained, for me, a sort of curiosity that was pretty strong. As this was about my 5th quit, I knew what to expect. Finally, after more than a year, I bummed a “hit” from a friend’s cig so that I’d have to give it back after that one taste. YUCK! It was nasty. Now when I smell someone else’s smoke I recall that, and have no desire to smoke.
I can’t claim any major health benefits, but that quiet “unwell” feeling is gone. The big gain is the mess of smoking is no longer with me. Smoking is a major hassle, with having ashtrays everywhere, the smell in your car* and house, finding a place to light up, and all that. You know what I mean. You also feel kinda strong, because you’ve kicked some ass. I’ve also had to semi-avoid friends and others who smoke.
So good luck and stick with it. If you make it, and really I hope you do, you’ll be glad you did. If you fall, try again. Drugs (wellbutrin) and meetings finally worked for me.
*Smokers - hanging your cigarette outside your car, and letting all your smoke and ashes go into everyone else’s cars, does no good. Your car’s still gonna stink, and the resale value is going to suffer. People who don’t smoke can smell that crap from a mile away. Maybe more so for ex-smokers.
Lecture over.
Are kids now thinking ahead about their old age? I sure wasn’t when I started smoking. Next week was too far away to consider the consequences.
Ah, an easy one. 
No!
For kids, the bad part (payback) has to be right now.