I prefer the tobacco industry, and here's why

Over on Clive Bates' Blog there is lively debate in the comments. Some of the things being said really trouble me, and Clive himself is/was in the tobacco control industry. It is only his support of vaping that puts him into "my" camp. Otherwise, he is tobacco control - not in my camp.

 It may or may not be appropriate to relate MY experience of smoking. On the ground amongst the rabble of actual smokers - old ones like me, a lot of us didn't actually experience many of the horrors we are told about smoking. My generation smoked in the house in the presence of our children, and we smoked whilst pregnant and breastfeeding too. And we smoked everywhere else. I was teaching. We used to smoke in the playground on break duty, in the staff room and some teachers actually smoked in the classroom. In my life, and generation of smoking friends I can recall NONE of the dreadful outcomes of smoking. My father-in-law, who was a 60 a day plain man and a bottle a day alcoholic died of lung cancer in his middle seventies. It was quick and painless surprisingly. He used to cough and hack the drunker and more obnoxious he got! He was the family's shame.

None of our five children smoke, although they all tried it. They are an intelligent, successful bunch - all seemingly healthy. My husband gave up smoking in a fit of flu many years ago, but I carried on in a strange and abnormal society that was having its mind changed about smokers who now found themselves discriminated against. I am the old guard, a smoking survivor. There are millions like me, because we are still alive. We are in our homes, isolated now, and not sure if we are safe even there. The smoking ban has been devastating to my generation - devastating. I think this is something Stan and Clive and their ilk have no concept of!

At the end of 2011 I switched to vaping by complete accident. It was a most surprising event in my life. I just preferred it to smoking. So, this dedicated smoker who was determined never to stop, did. Smoking has been one of the great pleasures of my life. I have replaced it with vaping. To read in the comments  by Stan on Clive's blog thread that vaping should be banned wherever smoking is banned scares the shit out of me. It does that because it exposes the viciousness of the tobacco control movement in the drive to their end game. The cost financially to the world and to individual happiness of tobacco control and the smoke free movement,  has been vast - equal to that of the tobacco industry. 

It is only my own experience, but I prefer the tobacco industry - at least they gave me 50 years of great pleasure and they are not going to ban vaping. Tobacco control have created a world of terrified people who have treated me very badly and who intend to damage my life even further. There's nothing to like about THEM!