I am biased against smokers, admittedly, but I wonder which of my assumptions about them are valid. I assume that smokers, for example, are less educated than smokers, and also less intelligent, but have no idea if anyone has studied this systematically. I also assume that smokers earn less money than non-smokers, are more religious than non-smokers, drive different cars, live in different parts of the country, own more guns, watch more Fox news, vote Republican, and about a zillion things, but would like to see some data on this. I’m pretty sure the cigarette companies have studied this stuff up the yin-yang, but is any of the data available in a reputable study?
I doubt it. 
Yeah, you’re biased. And pretty darn judgmental about it, in the view of one educated liberal atheist anti-gun pro-choice can’t stand Fox News smoker.
But whatever justifies your worldview, I guess.:rolleyes:
Smokers look wrinkled, leathery and grey.
I’m trying to think of a Canadian joke, but I got nothin, ay?
According to this, smokers in the US generally are:
less educated
poorer
live in Nevada, Kentucky or Ohio
American Indian or Alaskan
Although if you are African American you prefer menthol cigarettes
And increasingly more female
Young
What if I said all of those things about obese people? Or did a whole new thread about obese people saying they were lazy, smelly, stupid morons who always voted democrat so they can protect their “disability”?
What makes you think these things about smokers? Seriously?
If she smokes, she pokes. </high school>
And they smell bad.
I know very few religious smokers - your body is God’s temple and all that. There are some, of course, but most smokers I have known have been areligious.
In the US, tobacco smoking declines as education rises. And, of course, there are other factors as well. For instance, smokers tend to be overwhelmingly male.
To clarify - to what purpose do you wish to confirm your beliefs? What do you or anyone else gain by learning these things?
Even if you are 100% correct, your answers are useless except to look down on people. What’s the gain in that?
Hmmm, misread the statistics. Smokers are more likely to be male, but not overwhelmingly so.
If you said some of those things (not all, but some) about obese people, you’d be correct. Specifically thelower education, geographic area and lower income ones.
Jeesh, unbunch the panties, folks! It’s not bigotry to ask if your preconceived notions have actually been found to be true in studies. It’s bigotry to hang on to your preconceived ideas if they’ve been *debunked *in studies.
I am a non-smoker but fit about half of the characteristics you have listed there as presumably negative and attributed to smokers. I think smoking is also very regional. My wife is a respiratory therapist and works with pulmonologists who you would think would never touch a cigarette. Here in California, you’d mostly be right. But when we were in Texas, at least 50% of the folks in this line of work would light up. Some were cigarette smokers and some were weekend cigar smokers. All of them were well educated and they varied in their political views.
I have personally seen no patterns to smokers over the years. If anything, I might vaguely say that smokers are more likely to be ‘risk takers’. That said, I don’t mean people who go hang-gliding and race motorcycles. I mean more like, they probably have a few more sexual partners over their lifetime than a non-smoker on average, but I’d say the same thing for heavier than normal drinkers. Smokers might eat foods higher in fat, salt etc. which could be the direct result of a deadened sense of taste.
They are absolutely not useless. If we know that the less educated or poor are more likely to smoke, then we should (assuming we want to eradicate smoking), focus our money and attention on creating or supporting smoking cessation programs at places where we’re going to find those people. If it’s true that religious people are less likely to smoke (I don’t know if it is, I’d need to see some numbers supporting that assertion), then we needn’t put a lot of focus and money into distributing information about the dangers of smoking at churches.
Identifying where your need really lies is the first step in addressing problems efficiently and effectively, and demographics helps us to do that.
The only trait I’ve connected with smokers is that they smoke, the rest of this BS comes from the original posters misplaced sense of superiority.
You might as well ask the same question of people who like eating prawns (insert other foodstuffs here). some like to, some don’t. get over it.
Somehow, I don’t get the feeling the OP is looking to start an anti-smoking campaign.
I never realized that cigarettes where just another foodstuff. Thanks, ignorance fought.