Wikipedia says:
from erowid.org :
the cigs would have fallen somewhere in the common - strong area and the cigar in the heavy
Interesting; thanks.
I was 13 and was fooling around with some friends. The cigarette tasted like burnt rubber and I almost hurled. I didn’t understand why anyone actually liked doing it.
Five years later I got over that memory and started smoking at parties, quickly becoming addicted.
I smoked my first cigarette when I was 11. My brother’s friend swiped a pack from one of our teachers. The three of us snuck off to a field and smoked. I really don’t know if I inhaled at all or not. I’d say I really started smoking regularly when I was 14. By the time I was 16 and had my own car, I was probably getting close to a pack a day.
In my early 20’s I decided to try to quit. I’ve made several attempts, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, after 14 yrs of smoking, I read a book that was recommended here on the Dope (the Easy Way to Quit Smoking - Alan Carr) and I haven’t had a cigarette or the desire for a cigarette since.
Why did you first light up a cigarette?
I don’t remember.
How old were you?
I don’t remember. Young, though. Maybe early teens?
What do you remember about the experience?
Obviously nothing.
Do you still smoke?
You betcha.
If so, how frequently?
Every day. Pack, pack and a half - more on the weekend.
What part of the world do you live in – is it common or uncommon for others like you (gender, social class, etc) to smoke where you live?
Northwest suburbs of Chicago. (Female, I don’t have a social class I don’t think). It’s becoming more and more - er what’s the word - not taboo - just not acceptable I guess - as the county has gone smoke free and soon the state will be. The only inside place I’m allowed to smoke is my house and car. Otherwise I have to go outside. I’ve spent a lot of time in an outdoor beer garden this summer. 
First cigarette was when I was 17. I was working at a Wendy’s with a lot of smokers and seemed like the thing to do. The first puff got me coughing but after that I had no problems. Starting buying my own shortly after that and now 15 years later I am about a half a pack a day smoker.
I think I was 12. My sister explained to me how lame and loserish it was not to smoke. She offered to buy me a pack (with my money, of course), and I accepted. I smoked on and off over the course of a year or so, then gave it up. When I was 14, I met my best friend Brad, who again explained how uncool it was not to smoke.
Since then, I have quit once, and it lasted a mere two weeks.
But yesterday Allen Carr’s book arrived in the mail. I’ll finish it by Christmas. That’s a promise.
I think I was six years old if I remember correctly. My father was siting on the porch with his rolling tobacco. Curious as I was, I nagged him that I wanted to make one too, and in the end he gave in. When he lit it up, I nagged him that I wanted to smoke too, and in the end he gave in (with a coy smile), and told me to inhale really really good, because that whats real smokers do… I quickly turned green and ran around the corner puking my guts out.
Apropos, no, I have not started smoking since.
Actually very few of my friends smoke either. Theres a lot people smoking here in Scandinavia, though, so I am not to be taken as a good example.
I do use “snus” (moist tobacco that you roll into a small ball and put under your upper lip) though once in a while, mostly when on fieldwork. Using “snus” started in the army, as I remember at least 80% of my platoon ended up using it.
My friends had all smoked since they were about 11 or so, but I always resisted and had no urge to whatsoever. I’d still hang out with them while they smoked, and I kind of liked the smell, but I was ambivalent about it. Then one day when I was 15 or 16, my friend Justin gave me a cigarette and asked me if I would give it to another friend of ours the next time I saw him, since he owed him one. That night, I was walking around our small town, mooning over this boy I’d been in love with for months (long story - it ended badly). I realized I still had the smoke in my pocket, and decided that I really felt like doing something bad for me, something harmful to myself but not too much so. So I smoked it, all my myself, just wandering. It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t great. It just was.
After that, I started bumming a smoke here and there from my friends just to watch their expressions - they were shocked that I had finally started smoking! When I started engaging in illegal substances over the next couple years, I started smoking more, but still never bought my own till years later.
My husband and I just quit in May and are doing pretty well with it. I hope we stay quit this time.
I was about 12 and ran out of pot. 
Well, I had to smoke something!
Okay, I think I had my first cigarette about 12 and by the time I was 13 I was buying them.
According to TV crime dramas, yes. Folks who are wearing a patch or five and also smoking keel over with nicotine poisoning.
As for the OP, I’ll have to let you know. I’m thinking of smoking or dipping to replace food. (not really, I hope) No smoking so far.
I’m not a smoker but I had a major role in a play that required me to smoke. The character was a chain smoker and basically lit one cigarette with another one. We didn’t have the cool props or anything that would let me fake smoking, so I learned to smoke.
At our first full rehearsal, I smoked three cigarettes in a row and had to go throw up. While I enjoyed that role, I was very glad when the run was over.
First cigarette was at a party when I was 17. Tasted like shit. The hardest part was trying to look cool as if I’d smoked before, while turning beet-red and coughing at every attempted puff.
Started smoking because of a friend who chain-smoked. I told him, I’d smoke one cigarette for every cigarette he smoked, and if he cared about my lungs, he would quit. (Naturally, he didn’t care too much for my lungs…)
Shortly thereafter, I managed to quit for six weeks, but started up again after another friend was nearly killed in a car accident on Pacific Coast Highway. Later, my girlfriend said she’d break up with me if I didn’t quit smoking. I chose to keep smoking.
God, I make such stupid decisions sometimes. :rolleyes:
I was in 7th grade, and a smoker friend and I were walking to color guard practice. We stopped at a gas station and I smoked my first and only cigarette in the bathroom there. Did it make me sick, you ask? No. On the contrary. I was so good at smoking that cigarette* that I thought this can’t be good- it would be tooooo easy, so I never did it again.
*got a lifetime of experience as a secondhand smoker in my house where both my parents smoked. My mom smoked when she was pregnant with me, too. There’s a great picture of me as a 2 week old: my mom has me cradled in her lap with a lit cigarette in the ashtray on the table next to us.
Wow - I started late. My first cigarette was at age 24 - a clove cigarette from a friend at a bar. I think the attraction was based on how whenever the shit hits the fan, all the smokers go “I gotta have a smoke!” I thought it must be nice to have something to calm you down in those times, side-effects be damned. What a ripoff.
One thing smoking did teach me, though, is that a random 5 minute break from whatever you’re doing out on the back porch just hanging out w/ the dog looking at the stars is time well spent. That applies with or without the actual cancer-stick.
I smoked (and enjoyed) pot before I smoked cigarettes. I can’t remember my FIRST cig, but I remember the time when I tried to smoke. I just couldn’t get past the horrible stomach pain induced by tobacco. I tried really hard, too! I stole some Skoal Bandits from the place I worked at, and tried those instead. They made me feel good, until I barfed breakfast all over my bed. No stomach upset with the smokeless tobacco, just barf.
Never had a problem with pot. In fact, my wife and two of our best friends all have been (at some time in the past) heavy pot smokers, but non-tobacco-users.
Joe
My parents sat me and my three siblings down when I was about 10/11 and gave us a cigarette to smoke - three of us ran to the bathroom chocking and gagging, and my brother smoked more than half of it saying “It’s not that bad”.
I’ve never smoked since, apart from a couple of puffs on a cigar after my daughter was born, and one cigarillo once at a party. As far as I’m aware, none of my siblings smoke either - so my parent’s tactics seem to have worked!!
Grim
Holy crap. We are the same person. My dad smoked Newport, my mom smoked Kools. I smoked both, eventually settling on Newport at the age of 15. I quit cold turkey at 18. Up until that time, I smoked like a pack a day. Yeah…that was me, outside of the school in the 4th grade, sneaking that one last drag before running in for class.
First was when I was fourteen, in the unused shower room in the girl’s locker room after gym class. One of the ‘cool’ girls (a junior, taking freshman gym for the third time…) who I didn’t get on with unexpectedly offered me a smoke, so of course I accepted. It kind of burned but was overall…eh. I would’ve had to hide it from my parents and my martial arts instructors would have killed me if I got caught smoking, so it never took.
Aside from a brief infatuation with shisha, my smoking today is limited to occasionally bumming a cigarette when I’ve been drinking, which I inevitably result when I can’t breathe comfortably for hours.
I’d taken drags off cigarettes when I was a kid but my 20s was when I started actually smoking whole cigarettes and buying packs. My boyfriend at the time was a smoker and so was pretty much everyone I worked with and everyone in my family (except my siblings, who I never saw). I picked one up one night when we were talking and smoked it down, and just like the ones I’d taken drags from many years before I smoked it/exhaled it perfectly, no coughing. If I were as much a total natural with athletics as I was with smoking I’d be on posters and endorsement deals and high profile sex and steroid scandals all over the nation.