NOW THAT'S NOT FUNNY

I Wish I'd Never Started Smoking

When I started smoking nobody ever talked about the even the least of the problem with smoking - "It stinks." There were no health warnings printed on cigarette packaging. Cigarette smoking was considered the cool thing to do.

By the time all the health crusaders started all the hullabaloo over cigarette smoking, I was totally addicted - TOTALLY.

It's not that I don't want to quit smoking, it's that I want my quiting smoking to be easy... very easy, at least as easy as it was to start smoking.

Before I was even old enough to consider smoking, the candy industry made candy cigarettes. How's that for indoctranating a child to become a smoker!!! I was doomed from the get-go so to speak.

Now that I'm an adult, and there is all this wealth of knowledge about the hazards of smoking, I'm suppose to just be able to quit smoking? Yea, right... wait for it. I'm a damn drug addict.

The difference between my drug addiction to nicotine and another individual's drug addiction, to say like to crack cocaine ... is everybody is makeing a profit.

The states wouldn't have given a hoot about my smoking if there were not millions of dollars at stake they claim they needed for reembursment for providing health services. The lawyers wouldn't have given a damn except the damn lawyers stood to make millions in legal fees.

And the damn cigarette companies couldn't have cared less about my health, or anybody elses health, as they set out to manipulate the nicotine content in cigarettes to delibrately make cigarettes more addictive by increasing the nicotine content - thus assuring themselves a life-long customer.

I'd opt for a two or three week long drug induced coma to allow the nicotine to get out of my system... although I've heard it only takes a day or two. So the addiction is not just physical... it emotional and psychological as well. Even so, I can't absolutely be sure I'd never smoke again.

Our lovely Federal government won't ban cigarette production, oh no... they'll just make it illegal for me to smoke anywhere except a bar or casino. It's all motivated by profit... I'm almost sure the government calls the profits - taxes. Duh!

I still don't understand the governments paying tobacco producers subsidies, but I'm almost sure the government subsidies were the same difference as politicians buying votes and future campaign contributions...

Crack addicts get more sympathy and help from do-gooders' with their addictions. Hey, there are methadone clinics, arn't there?

And before somebody suggests I chew that nasty gum, have you read the warning lables. I have... I'd just as well smoke.

I've thought about hynosis... I read the adverizing propaganda... but I don't personally know one single individual that says, "Hynosis worked for me."

I'm not generally a weak natured person, but when it comes to my cigarettes... I feel it is absolutely hopeless.

Smoking is a digusting, expensive, nasty habit. It's a drug addiction. It's a legal, taxed, drug addiction.

And I'm not a stupid person normally... and even knowing all I do know about the health risks surrounding smoking, including the aforementioned profit taking by state governments and lawyers... It needs to be easier than it currently is in order for me to stop smoking.

My grandparents smoked. My grandfather rolled his own. I believe the man smoked before pre-rolled cigarettes were sold. My father smoked. My husband smokes.

I strongly discouraged my own kids from smoking. I got four kids... I'm 2 for 2 - Two do and two don't.

Smoking is the monkey on my back. I've tried to quit, but cigarette smoking is so entrenched in my life. I like my coffee, but I can't see being able to enjoy a cup of coffee without a cigarette.

I really do start JONESING for a cigarette after each meal, or during stressful events, or long drives. It's ugly, it really is.

And I can't imagine what I'd do with myself while stopping to take a think break when writing... if I couldn't smoke.

OH, WELL... back to work...


Tobacco Racketeers Get Off Easy
Published: August 20, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/opinion/20sun2.html?ex=1313726400&en=44185d9cb...