While I smoked, I was never aware of anyone who crashed their car because they were addicted to smoking, or killed their spouses because they were "blown" on cigarettes. I never heard of gangs of youth under the influence of tobacco, vomiting in the streets or attacking passers by. I did not read in the papers of folks overdosing on cigarettes. In my personal life, none of my children suffered low birth size, cot deaths or asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's even though I would light up to feed them in the night, or if they stressed me out with messy rooms, or fussy eating. We lived in a big house, five kids and smoking Mom and Dad. None of our children smoke, although they tried it, all dumped it in their twenties. None of them, or us, committed any offence under the influence of smoking.
Our friends smoked too. None of their children suffered low birth size, cot deaths, asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's. Most of them no longer smoke, seeing the benefits of not doing so. I seemed to be the only determined smoker, rebellious to the last, who carried on. And I did, because I enjoyed smoking and the more I was bullied into stopping, the more determined I became, to carry on. The ex-smokers I know now drink more. I don't drink.
I think that tobacco control might be disappointed now that smoking rates are not reducing - but I think there will always be a percentage of the population that enjoy nicotine. In the old days, smoking was the main way to ingest it. I can remember how surprised I was when I first heard of nicotine patches and gum to help smokers desist. Trouble is, they don't work well. No one under the influence of nicotine patches has smashed up the ATM machine, or assaulted a nurse. No one has been reported as having died. Do patch users' children suffer low birth size, cot deaths, asthma, allergies, or lowered IQ's?
Nicotine has been properly trashed as the evil addictive chemical in cigarettes. But I do not believe that. Some Scottish doctor dude isolated nicotine as the addictive chemical in tobacco in the 1800's. (link unavailable) And that's been accepted as gospel ever since. I think we should move on now. As a vaper, I never get a desperate urge for my nicotine fix, like I used to when I smoked. If I can't vape, well, toughees, I just wait until I can. And that's usually when others are "gagging for a cuppa"!
I love vaping as much as I loved smoking. I can't see nicotine being a dangerous drug to society. It will not make us more violent, or addled. In fact, I think society was more relaxed and less anal when most people smoked!
Vaping is such an ingenious way to continue to be a nicotine addict. And I like it. It is far, far more interesting in every way than smoking ever was. I get sick of the continual yapping on about nicotine and its demonic ability to trap all humans in its terrifying claws. We are missing something. Nocotine in cigarettes is not the nicotine I know. And where are the millions of patch wearers hopelessly addicted to wearing patches?
This is not the 1800's. We absolutely must move on. We must separate nicotine from other chemicals or processes that happen to people whilst smoking cigarettes that make smoking tobacco more addictive than simply the nicotine in it.
Good on ya Liz. Greetings from Sydney, Australia.
ReplyDeleteA great post. I thoroughly enjoyed it and agree with you. There is a lot of hysteria surrounding smoking. Its almost as if people are outraged by people enjoying nicotine. Total hypocrisy when alcohol, which ruins many more lives, is almost mandatory in the UK. People get offended if you politely decline an alcoholic drink, but the nice thing about being older is that you no longer care. If you don't want it you just don't have it, but I think the pressure is hard for young people to cope with.
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