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Smoking is back and it’s still cool (and deadly)
The Guardian ^ | July 2, 2023 | Eva Weisman

Posted on 07/24/2023 8:01:34 PM PDT by DoodleBob

Today I became nostalgic for a smell. You wake up on top of the covers in your underwear, and through the gloaming of your bedroom, through the smug pint of water, through the angst and exhaustion and joy and regret that comes from five hours in a nightclub and two hours on the wrong bus home, there is some bitter relief in the smell of smoke on your hair. That smell! Like barbecued teenagers and pepper and beer, almost lovely, pleasantly vile, a kind of lovebite memory, bruised on the throat in passion. That smell. It all seems quite mad now, the idea that people smoked, not just inside, but underground, in windowless rooms. Though I suppose so much seems mad to me about young fun still: come out, drink until you’re sick, it’ll be a laugh! …

When I read the news that smoking was coming back, I thought: that smell. Then I thought: of course. The wellness era is truly at its end, celery water pooling under the door, hot yoga cooled down to a single tepid pilate. In a recent exchange with another artist, David Hockney wrote, “I too am BORED with WELLNESS. The concept seems ridiculous and too bossy for me, I’m still smoking, and ENJOYING it ENORMOUSLY.” His cigarette set off a fire alarm at the launch of his latest exhibition…

But the problem with our major shift away from smoking was, while they could persuasively prove that it killed people, they were unable to convince anyone that cigarettes were not cool. This fact, I’m afraid, has come back to bite us.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Society
KEYWORDS: smoking
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To: metmom

It’s good for the government, more tax revenue!


121 posted on 07/25/2023 8:41:31 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: GunRunner

“You can smoke at your home or any private residence”

Many apartment and condo complexes do ban it.

In addition HUD bans it in public housing:

https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/4_SMOKEF_FS_INFORESIDENTS.PDF


122 posted on 07/25/2023 8:42:05 AM PDT by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: metmom

[[I have yet to see a smoker take on the financial responsiblity for their health care needs from years of smoking.]]

I have yet to see an overeater do so- or a reckless thrill seeker- or an aids diseased or SD riddled person or drug addict, or fast driver, or text and drivers or or or...


123 posted on 07/25/2023 8:44:27 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: DoodleBob

I’m a Scotch and cigar man. Anyone who thinks that is terrible should stop soiling their diapers and grow up. One great thing about Scotch and cigars is that these effeminate little boys and childish little girls stay away.


124 posted on 07/25/2023 8:45:38 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: slorunner

believe what you want- no everyone didn’t always know-


125 posted on 07/25/2023 8:46:19 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: PGR88

“I swear I smell more marijuana smoke now on the streets and in public (open) spaces than I ever smelled tobacco smoke as a kid”

Same here. The same whiny pre-pubescent kids smoke pot, but that’s different somehow.


126 posted on 07/25/2023 8:46:47 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: hinckley buzzard

“Smoking is about as cool as picking your nose in public”

Smoking is far cooler than being a whiny homosexual about it.


127 posted on 07/25/2023 8:47:33 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: Bob434

“people like to go out and socialize with drink and smoke- but liberals are just too perpetually angry to allow anyone to actually enjoy themselves”

The irony is that it was the liberals who stopped the smoking in bars but it is primarily the liberals who smoked in bars.


128 posted on 07/25/2023 8:48:23 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: CodeToad

I call my cigars “Karen repellent”.

;-)


129 posted on 07/25/2023 8:48:27 AM PDT by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: gnarledmaw

“Scotch is whiskey for people with bad taste”

Scotch is a refined whiskey. Much better tasting.


130 posted on 07/25/2023 8:51:58 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: cgbg

I like to say, “Smells funny, so you’re leaving, right?”

I smoke only in areas where no one else is around, as I do have couth and don’t annoy people who otherwise are enjoying themselves and would prefer not to have cigar smoke in the area. So, if someone finds their way over to me, tough.


131 posted on 07/25/2023 8:55:32 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: metmom

“I am kind of staggered by the mentality that it’s good that more people are smoking more because it means more freedom.”

You mean stopping people from smoking is more freedom? What are you trying to say here, and don’t let your hatred of smoking cloud your logic.


132 posted on 07/25/2023 8:56:46 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: dfwgator

“They were calling cigarettes “Coffin Nails” for years before the truth came out.”

Came out? Is that some kind of official publication because the dangers of smoking were known more than a century ago. So were the dangers of being fat, lazy, bad diets, etc.


133 posted on 07/25/2023 8:59:45 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: metmom

and just one small point- the argument that smokers raise healthcare prices is disputed

there is the argument that people who smoke die quicker, and cost less than non smoking people who wind up in hospitals for myriad other ailments brought on by ‘unhealthy lifestyles’

“Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/smokers-the-obese-cheaper-to-treat-than-healthy-long-living-people-study-1.764092


134 posted on 07/25/2023 9:15:18 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: metmom

so “Down with healthy people!” lol


135 posted on 07/25/2023 9:17:03 AM PDT by Bob434
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To: cgbg
"There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS); even brief exposure can cause immediate harm."

So sayeth that paragon of intellectual and medical integrity, the quasi watchdog of the nation's health, the CDC (Center of Democrat Control).

If one believes that then all their Covid dissembling was easy to swallow...hook, line, sinker,rod & reel, fisherman and bass boat. Seriously, the whole modern bloody anti-smoking crusade began at least as far back as the 70's. The second hand smoke BIG LIE is nothing more than a political/control canard. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Inveterate pipe (and sometimes cigar) smoker here.

136 posted on 07/25/2023 9:30:09 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: DoodleBob

I believe it is not so much the tobacco a problem. But rather the chemicals they put on it, etc.


137 posted on 07/25/2023 9:32:44 AM PDT by TianaHighrider (God moved David to STAND UP to Goliath ❣)
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To: cgbg
Many apartment and condo complexes do ban it.

Totally fine with that. We have a rental property and we ban it too.

In addition HUD bans it in public housing...

That's just common sense. If you are destitute enough to be living in public housing, you don't need to be wasting your money on cigarettes.

138 posted on 07/25/2023 10:21:06 AM PDT by GunRunner
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To: CodeToad
You mean stopping people from smoking is more freedom? What are you trying to say here, and don’t let your hatred of smoking cloud your logic.

It's pretty simple. Suborning young people to start smoking makes them slaves to a deadly addiction. You can easily apply it to other things:

More people shooting up heroin is not freedom.
More people smoking crack is not freedom.
More people consuming pornography is not freedom.
More people binge drinking is not freedom.
More people having promiscuous sex is not freedom.
More people smoking weed is not freedom.
More people gambling their savings away in corporate casinos is not freedom.
Government lottery tickets at convenience stores is not freedom.

No rational person thinks freedom is more people developing deadly and bankrupting addictions, especially those addictions that are peddled to us by the government and by heavily subsidized corporations.

139 posted on 07/25/2023 10:28:53 AM PDT by GunRunner
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To: DoodleBob
The perpetuation of property rights is freedom.

If the GenZers are lighting up, and that hastens a suppression of Marxist treatment of commercial property rights, then bravo.

It won't do any such thing. If you were to visit a country or region that was awash in cigarette smoking, drinking, whoring, shooting up and smoking narcotics in public, sleeping in the street, and blowing their money on sports gambling, you shouldn't be fooled into thinking this is a cradle of freedom (even though the perpetuation of any of those things COULD be thought of as a perpetuation of property rights to the uninformed person). It would instead be the signs of a broken civilization.

The reason the Deep State is trying to get people to smoke again has nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with addiction and control. You're silly for falling for it.

140 posted on 07/25/2023 10:36:59 AM PDT by GunRunner
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