Why do you smoke tobacco?

[RoloMather]

For those who smoke, what benefits does smoking tobacco bring?

 

[shortylickens]

I dont, but when I did it was just big fat expensive cigars and only one a month, after a fantastic meal.

Its a nice way to finish a fantastic meal.

Thats it, thats the only reason I can think of.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Smoking cheap cigars, like King Eds, repels insects. Next time the gnats are thick when you are out fishing, light one up and watch the little buggers fall out of the sky with each puff!

 

[danzigrules]

Great joy in pissing people off that don't smoke!

 

[insect9]

I smoke a pipe in the evenings after I eat because I enjoy it.

 

[SlitheryDee]

The vast majority of the time I smoked was purely because of addiction to nicotine. It certainly wasn't because I thought it was cool, that ended after the first 6-8 months. It took ~5 years to grow to hate smoking enough to quit. ~4 of those years were spent regretting ever starting.

 

[jhu]

I don't smoke. But people who keep smoking saves the rest of us money in health care costs because they die sooner.

 

[MotF Bane]

Smoking cheap cigars, like King Eds, repels insects. Next time the gnats are thick when you are out fishing, light one up and watch the little buggers fall out of the sky with each puff!

There's your problem.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't smoke. But people who keep smoking saves the rest of us money in health care costs because they die sooner.

Hasn't that been disproven? Non-smokers live longer and die slowly, dragging out their medical expenses over a number of years while smokers tend to die young and quick, resulting in less money spent on health care over their lifetimes.

 

[jhu]

Hasn't that been disproven? Non-smokers live longer and die slowly, dragging out their medical expenses over a number of years while smokers tend to die young and quick, resulting in less money spent on health care over their lifetimes.

Uh, you just iterated what I just said...

 

[SlitheryDee]

Uh, you just iterated what I just said...

Yeah but...fuck. Carry on...^_^

 

[bobdole369]

I don't anymore. When I did (15 years worth) it was because I was addicted to nicotine. And smoking is easier/less painful/"better" than not smoking. Those who say they "enjoy" smoking cigarettes are deluding themselves. They simply enjoy not smoking much less.

See you start having physical withdrawals within about 30 minutes-1 hour after each cigarette is done. By smoking again you reset the clock, thus when addicted you must smoke every half hour to an hour - lest ye start experiencing withdrawals.

It's much better after about 72 hours of not smoking - then its just a mind game. After 2 weeks the frequency of cravings goes way down and your likelihood of staying quit is way up.

I started because my parents did it. My mom constantly smoked - sometimes over 2 packs a day of shitty "basic lights" or whatever "light" cigarette was on sale or b1g1. My dad was no pussy - he smoked - and still does either non-filter pall malls, lucky strikes, or camels. When he can't get those - or they are "stale" he'll tear off the filters from marlboros. One day when I was 11 I was hanging out with my friends from school we went under the bridge and smoked cigarettes and chucked rocks at shit. We were "cool". So I spent the next couple years sneaking around to smoke - either stealing from my mom or nicking whole packs from the store, or from my friends mom, or save up allowance and get someones brother to buy them - or shit even just going up and buying them myself, back in the early 90's kids could still buy cigs. About 14 or 15 my mom let me smoke in the house. It was the most fucked up thing. She did it to stop my brother from beating me up. She thought it better that I remained not beat to shit, but smoking - than end up with a broken leg. My brother was much bigger than me and detested smoking. He was right. He should have kept kicking my ass.

I had a job and could get them on my own by then. So I had been smoking now more out of necessity and addiction rather than to "be cool" or be "the rebel" or to be the guy who doesn't listen to his parents.

Once I started smoking a pack a day quasi-legally (with my moms blessing) - it sort of stopped being cool and felt more like I joined my grandma's 50+ club. I was addicted and it would be 15 more years until Obama and the states legislature got the taxes raised up enough where smoking actually cost my gf and I more than both of our car payments to continue.

We simply can't justify throwing that away. Not to mention for the past year I've been hating smoking. We smoked inside of every house/apt we've lived at - and it fucking destroys them! I don't see how/why people got away with doing that just about everywhere in the 50's and 60's. I even remember my mom smoking INSIDE the grocery store and just stomping the butt out on the aisle. Same thing inside K-mart. It was like 1985 or so though and non-smoking hadn't really caught on. I'm fairly sure you could still smoke on a damn airplane back then too.

In fact it was until 2003 or so you could still smoke inside restaurants here in FL. Now that you can't, I can't believe that you ever could!

Yellow walls, squares of white where the pictures/posters didn't get nicotined out. In this place where we've lived for the past 6 months - we made a pact that we wouldn't smoke in it. It's been wonderful. We had been smoking out front on the porch. Nothing so far is yellow - We noticed how bad our clothes stink - how horrifying our blankets smelled, and when we just got out the xmas tree, we realized how disgustign the goddamn christmas tree stunk! It was terrible!

We had been going back and forth about quitting, and originally had a 1 Nov quit-date. That passed and we weren't really serious. Next date we set was 1 Dec, which was set on Nov 29th, so we really didn't have time to dread it. We just didn't buy any more cigarettes, got rid of our lighters and cleaned up the porch.

So 1am on 1 Dec was my last smoke - hopefully forever. I still will smoke the pot, and drink, and no I won't smoke while drinking.

I've quit before but never so seriously and both times it wasn't my choice. (boot camp - 11 weeks, the instant I got out I bought a pack of marlboros and ripped off the filter like my old man) - Hospital stay - 2 months in traction (as soon as I was out of traction and in a wheelchair my mom wheeled my ass down to the smoking area and I bummed one from her.) Goddammit mom!

She quit 2 years ago - She prolonged her withdrawals and basically went through a couple months of slow torture, but if it works, it works right? She used the patch. I'm a big believer in cold turkey - get the damn withdrawals over with.

Nicotine addiction is the same as cocaine and heroin/opiods. You wouldn't tell an addict that they can keep having one more fix but just increase the time between them would you? An addiction is an addiction and needs to be dealt with that way. The only reason for nicotine replacement (nicorette/the patch/lozenge/e-cig) - is to prolong withdrawals. I understand the idea and that anything is better than smoking. Gum is much better than inhaling smoke. But in the end you still go through withdrawals, and you could still be addicted to the fucking gum. So get it over with - do your 3 days of hell - hope you last 2 weeks and never look back.

 

[surfsatwerk]

Smoking is cool.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Bobdole slow down a little mr. anti smoking. It's been all of 5 days and you claim to have totally quit smoking. You will continue smoking weed and drinking too? WTF?

 

[IGBT]

Nov. 24, 2009 -- Cigarettes are massive germ factories that may expose users and passersby to a swarm of disease-causing bacteria, a study shows.

It's well known that cigarette smoke harbors hundreds of toxic chemicals that are bad for your health. But a University of Maryland environmental health researcher says that's not the only danger. DNA examination of four cigarette brands shows, for the first time, that cigarettes are "widely contaminated" with hundreds of different types of bacteria. In fact, there appears to be as many bacteria in cigarettes as there are chemicals.

"The commercially available cigarettes that we tested were chock full of bacteria, as we had hypothesized, but we didn't think we'd find so many that are infectious in humans," says researcher Amy R. Sapkota, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland's School of Public Health.

Sapkota and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France examined the bacteria content in four major cigarette brands: Camel, Kool Filter Kings, Lucky Strike Original Red, and Marlboro Red and found similar types of bacteria in each one.

Previous research has watched for bacterial growth in lab dishes containing small tobacco samples, but this study is the first to scrutinize a cigarette's bacterial genetic makeup.

The testing revealed that cigarettes contain a wide variety of bacteria that are linked to lung, blood, and food-borne-related infections. Among those present were:

* Acinetobacter -- associated with certain blood and lung infections
* Bacillus -- some types are associated with anthrax and food poisoning
* Burkholderia -- some strains can cause respiratory infections
* Clostridium -- linked to food poisoning-related illnesses and lung infections
* Klebsiella -- associated with many kinds of lung, blood, and other infections
* Pseudomonas aeruginosa -- a specific type of bacteria that is responsible for 10% of hospital-acquired infections

"If these organisms can survive the smoking process -- and we believe they can -- then they could possibly go on to contribute to both infectious and chronic illnesses in both smokers and individuals who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke," Sapkota says.

Although the public health implications of these findings are unclear at present, scientists plan to continue their research to determine if the bacteria can be implicated in tobacco-related diseases. A big question is whether or not cigarette-borne bacteria can survive the burning process and enter the lungs of smokers and grow. Some evidence suggests that some bacteria can spread this way. The bacteria may also be present on, or in, the filter.

The study findings appear online ahead of print in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

SOURCES: News release, University of Maryland.

 

[Kirby]

There's not too many things more relaxing that some good pipe tobacco or cigar.

 

[shortylickens]

Living long and healthy costs the least amount in medical care.
Living short and unhealthy actually costs more. And those smokers dont die off at 40, so really its more like living unhealty for a not-quite-so-long time but still costing the health care system and the healthy people an assload of money which will be paid off about 50 years after the smoker dies.

 

[skull]

I don't anymore. When I did (15 years worth) it was because I was addicted to nicotine. And smoking is easier/less painful/"better" than not smoking. Those who say they "enjoy" smoking cigarettes are deluding themselves. They simply enjoy not smoking much less.

See you start having physical withdrawals within about 30 minutes-1 hour after each cigarette is done. By smoking again you reset the clock, thus when addicted you must smoke every half hour to an hour - lest ye start experiencing withdrawals.

It's much better after about 72 hours of not smoking - then its just a mind game. After 2 weeks the frequency of cravings goes way down and your likelihood of staying quit is way up.

I started because my parents did it. My mom constantly smoked - sometimes over 2 packs a day of shitty "basic lights" or whatever "light" cigarette was on sale or b1g1. My dad was no pussy - he smoked - and still does either non-filter pall malls, lucky strikes, or camels. When he can't get those - or they are "stale" he'll tear off the filters from marlboros. One day when I was 11 I was hanging out with my friends from school we went under the bridge and smoked cigarettes and chucked rocks at shit. We were "cool". So I spent the next couple years sneaking around to smoke - either stealing from my mom or nicking whole packs from the store, or from my friends mom, or save up allowance and get someones brother to buy them - or shit even just going up and buying them myself, back in the early 90's kids could still buy cigs. About 14 or 15 my mom let me smoke in the house. It was the most fucked up thing. She did it to stop my brother from beating me up. She thought it better that I remained not beat to shit, but smoking - than end up with a broken leg. My brother was much bigger than me and detested smoking. He was right. He should have kept kicking my ass.

I had a job and could get them on my own by then. So I had been smoking now more out of necessity and addiction rather than to "be cool" or be "the rebel" or to be the guy who doesn't listen to his parents.

Once I started smoking a pack a day quasi-legally (with my moms blessing) - it sort of stopped being cool and felt more like I joined my grandma's 50+ club. I was addicted and it would be 15 more years until Obama and the states legislature got the taxes raised up enough where smoking actually cost my gf and I more than both of our car payments to continue.

We simply can't justify throwing that away. Not to mention for the past year I've been hating smoking. We smoked inside of every house/apt we've lived at - and it fucking destroys them! I don't see how/why people got away with doing that just about everywhere in the 50's and 60's. I even remember my mom smoking INSIDE the grocery store and just stomping the butt out on the aisle. Same thing inside K-mart. It was like 1985 or so though and non-smoking hadn't really caught on. I'm fairly sure you could still smoke on a damn airplane back then too.

In fact it was until 2003 or so you could still smoke inside restaurants here in FL. Now that you can't, I can't believe that you ever could!

Yellow walls, squares of white where the pictures/posters didn't get nicotined out. In this place where we've lived for the past 6 months - we made a pact that we wouldn't smoke in it. It's been wonderful. We had been smoking out front on the porch. Nothing so far is yellow - We noticed how bad our clothes stink - how horrifying our blankets smelled, and when we just got out the xmas tree, we realized how disgustign the goddamn christmas tree stunk! It was terrible!

We had been going back and forth about quitting, and originally had a 1 Nov quit-date. That passed and we weren't really serious. Next date we set was 1 Dec, which was set on Nov 29th, so we really didn't have time to dread it. We just didn't buy any more cigarettes, got rid of our lighters and cleaned up the porch.

So 1am on 1 Dec was my last smoke - hopefully forever. I still will smoke the pot, and drink, and no I won't smoke while drinking.

I've quit before but never so seriously and both times it wasn't my choice. (boot camp - 11 weeks, the instant I got out I bought a pack of marlboros and ripped off the filter like my old man) - Hospital stay - 2 months in traction (as soon as I was out of traction and in a wheelchair my mom wheeled my ass down to the smoking area and I bummed one from her.) Goddammit mom!

She quit 2 years ago - She prolonged her withdrawals and basically went through a couple months of slow torture, but if it works, it works right? She used the patch. I'm a big believer in cold turkey - get the damn withdrawals over with.

Nicotine addiction is the same as cocaine and heroin/opiods. You wouldn't tell an addict that they can keep having one more fix but just increase the time between them would you? An addiction is an addiction and needs to be dealt with that way. The only reason for nicotine replacement (nicorette/the patch/lozenge/e-cig) - is to prolong withdrawals. I understand the idea and that anything is better than smoking. Gum is much better than inhaling smoke. But in the end you still go through withdrawals, and you could still be addicted to the fucking gum. So get it over with - do your 3 days of hell - hope you last 2 weeks and never look back.

Are you serious? I quit smoking with snus for a few months. Then one day I just realized I hadn't had one in 3 days. There wasn't any withdrawl what so ever I didn't even realize I wasn't doing them. You can't get physically addicted to nicotine its all in your head.

Now heroin is a whole other animal 5 days shaking sweating throwing up not sleeping and just feeling like shit. Thats withdrawl. Stop being a pussy.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I started smoking by having a cigarette after smoking weed to enhance the buzz. I was smoking pot daily so it wasn't hard to see where that was going, and I was an idiot.

I continued smoking because I enjoyed a smoke (still do) and it's an excellent stress reliever.

I quit recently due to a slight medical scare (some may remember my thread about it). No smokes for 10 weeks.

 

[jhu]

Living long and healthy costs the least amount in medical care.
Living short and unhealthy actually costs more. And those smokers dont die off at 40, so really its more like living unhealty for a not-quite-so-long time but still costing the health care system and the healthy people an assload of money which will be paid off about 50 years after the smoker dies.

We have good epidemiological data pointing to overall cost savings if people continue to smoke. It's on the order of $5 billion/year.

 

[rudeguy]

Why do you troll?

 

[zanejohnson]

Are you serious? I quit smoking with snus for a few months. Then one day I just realized I hadn't had one in 3 days. There wasn't any withdrawl what so ever I didn't even realize I wasn't doing them. You can't get physically addicted to nicotine its all in your head.

Now heroin is a whole other animal 5 days shaking sweating throwing up not sleeping and just feeling like shit. Thats withdrawl. Stop being a pussy.

lol true that.

cig withdrawal is like a papercut compared to heroin/opoid withdrawal...

example... i went to jail addicted to opiates once, i also smoked 1 to 1.5 packs of cigs a day...guess which one was bothering me not to have more...lol... i would have probably sold my soul to the devil for a hit of heroin, cigs weren't even on my mind...

 

[QueBert]

Living long and healthy costs the least amount in medical care.
Living short and unhealthy actually costs more. And those smokers dont die off at 40, so really its more like living unhealty for a not-quite-so-long time but still costing the health care system and the healthy people an assload of money which will be paid off about 50 years after the smoker dies.

False, studies have been done showing smokers end up costing tax payers A LOT less than a non smoker. They typically die much younger, and the death is very quick. If you factor in the huge cigarette taxes a lot of states have. Smokers not only save tax payers huge amounts of money in the long run. But they also generate a whole lot of money thru paying anywhere from $1-2 a pack extra which does directly to the states.

I don't smoke BTW, but I'm not going to pretend that smokers don't end up saving me cash.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Cuz I'm addicted.

 

[nonameo]

lol true that.

cig withdrawal is like a papercut compared to heroin/opoid withdrawal...

example... i went to jail addicted to opiates once, i also smoked 1 to 1.5 packs of cigs a day...guess which one was bothering me not to have more...lol... i would have probably sold my soul to the devil for a hit of heroin, cigs weren't even on my mind...

well now there's a charlie horse if I ever heard of one. I think we should try this with all smokers!