The benefits of smoking

None, you idiot! There are no benefits to smoking.. not one. It doesn't make you look cool, it doesn't make you look more attractive, it definitely doesn't help your breath or your health. So why do you do it? If i see a normally attractive man or woman out and about they are instantaneously made hideous once they reach for that pack of cigarettes. I made my husband quit when we were dating under threat of leaving him.

Smoking has more than 50 ways of making life a misery through illness and more than 20 ways of killing you. In general, smokers endure poorer health than non-smokers. It has been estimated that, in England, 364,000 patients are admitted to NHS hospitals each year due to diseases caused by smoking. This translates into 7,000 hospital admissions per week, or 1,000 day. [i] In 1997/98, cigarette smoking caused an estimated 480,000 patients to consult their GP for heart disease,20,000 for stroke and nearly 600,000 for COPD. 1

Half of all teenagers who are currently smoking will die from diseases caused by tobacco if they continue to smoke. One quarter will die after 70 years of age and one quarter before, with those dying before 70 losing on average 21 years of life. [ii] It is estimated that between 1950 and 2000 six million Britons, 60 million people worldwide, would have died from tobacco-related diseases. [iii]
One in two long-term smokers will die prematurely as a result of smoking - half of these in middle age. The most recent estimates show that around 106,000 people in the UK are killed by smoking every year, accounting for one fifth of all UK deaths. [vi] Most die from one of the three main diseases associated with cigarette smoking: lung cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease (bronchitis and emphysema) and coronary heart disease. The table below shows the percentage and numbers of deaths attributable to smoking, based on the latest available detailed breakdown (2002 data).
Deaths caused by smoking are five times higher than the 22,833 deaths arising from: traffic accidents (3,439); poisoning and overdose (881); alcoholic liver disease (5,121); other accidental deaths (8,579); murder and manslaughter (513); suicide (4,066); and HIV infection (234) in the UK during 2002. [vii] World-wide, almost 5 million die prematurely each year as a result of smoking. Based on current trends, this will rise to 10 million within 20 years. [viii]
(http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact02.html)

Now, I'm sure you've herad of all that before and, if you're a smoker, ignored them. Now, I'm going to tell you what I think of smokers and what I think of smoking laws in the US. If you're a non-smoker or a smoker, let me know what you think and why you do or do not agree.

What I think of smokers: Smokers are some of the most selfish people on the planet. Constantly spewing poison and and ranting about how they have the right to smoke and no one can tell them what to do, they smoke with complete disregard of anyone around them be they men, women, the elderly, children, babies or pregnant women. Well, you're right.. you do have the right to smoke. But i have the right not to. You'll say, but i'm not forcing you to smoke! Well yes, you are. I have the right not to smoke be it first hand OR second hand.

I was addicted to cigarette smoke when I was six. Everyone in my house smoked- my grandmother, my grandfather, my aunt and my mom. When we finally moved into a house of our own (with just my mom) I was six years old and I went into withdrawl. My dreams were haunted with images of smoking those sweet, wonderful cancer sticks. In my dreams I enjoyed them, i loved them, i NEEDED them. I dreampt of my aunt handing me a pack of her brand and me smoking them with glee. Keep in mine.. I was six years old. These dreams continued for years, though I have never had the desire to actually smoke. Is it any wonder that such a high percentage of children with parents who smoke end up smoking themselves? How much choice do they have when they're addicted before they can walk or talk?

Which brings me to laws concerning smoking. There are aready many bars, resteraunts, and other public areas that have banned smoking. This is wonderful, but I'd like to take it further and ban smoking in ALL public areas, including outside of stores, in parks, parking lots.. basically anywhere that's not your car or your home. When I was pregnant I was constantly angered by walking into the grocery store and having to pass through a cloud of poison. Or trying to enjoy a day at the park with my newborn son and having some ass walk up beside us and light one up. My son does NOT deserve that.

Furthermore, I believe that smoking should be made illegal around ANY child of any age. Parents have their children taken away for all kinds of reasons, drinking too much, drugs, abuse, neglect. So why not cigarettes? After all, they're directly damaging their child's health. An alcoholic doesn't have to physically effect a child to have that child removed from the home. No exceptions, no excuses. No smoking within at least 20 ft of any child, whether that be at a private residence or in a car. It doesn't matter if the windows are rolled down or the fan is going or you've got your air purifier running.. none of those things help much.

No matter how nice the smoker is as a person, no matter how concerned or sweet or caring, they will still light one up with total disregard to you or your children. And no, blowing the smoke out the window does not count. To all of my smoking friends: I love you, I really do and my opinions of your filthy, disgusting habit has nothing to do with how much I love you. But I have never met a smoker that these things have not applied to... even my own mother who started smoking again after 15 years of being clean. Mom, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do, and I wish I didn't lose a little respect for you.