Rimfire Central Firearm Forum banner

Opinions On Smoking

68K views 646 replies 337 participants last post by  ChanceMcCall 
#1 ·
I was just interested in what everyone's opinion is for smoking on here. Couldn't make a poll for whatever reason though.
 
#642 ·
Quit 40 years ago. 2 packs a day, after the 3rd day it got easier. Reaching in pocket in pocket was hardest to break. Wild cherry life savers helped me. One day after 20 years I found my self reaching in my pocket for a smoke. If anyone says they can't quit its because they don't want to. You have to man up. I don't no why anyone would smoke after all the years its been proven its bad for your health. Had a couple of friends that told me smoking didn't bother them and they was both dead in a couple of years. QUIT NOW, DON'T USE THE EXCUSE THAT YOU CAN'T, DON'T BE A PUSSY.
 
#3 ·
Where it's legal, it's none of my business what others put into their body as long as I don't have to breathe it too.

I don't smoke because I don't want to and I believe it increases the risk of various diseases. Note - increasing risk is not the same as causality! That's my opinion and I only share it here because I was asked. I don't offer that opinion to anyone unless asked, and I've never had a smoker ask me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: martymoose
#18 ·
I am of the same opinion as timberbeast63...I never have smoked. Sad thing is that it is one of the most addictive substances, it is legal and there is a multi-billion industry surrounding smoking/tobacco. When I worked at the VA Substance Abuse Treatment Program I had former heroin addicts tell me it is harder to get off of cigarettes than heroin. Some ex-smokers have told me that even 30 years after quitting they still crave a cigarette from time to time. It should be phased out as a product but I understand it is probably going to be about one of the last products still produced in and consumed in the U.S. with the U.S. exporting about 25% of what is manufactured here so that makes it a very viable product.
 
#5 ·
It's killed a number of relatives of mine and several good friends.

It's GOING TO kill my brother, his wife, and some other good friends.

It kills more people each DAY than the attacks of 9/11, yet we do not have the will to declare war on the tobacco company executives.

It costs our country more than the attacks of 9/11 every year. And yet...

It smells really REALLY bad so I will NOT eat or spend time in places where it's allowed. I don't like needing to take a shower and put all of my clothes directly into the wash after being around it or waking up the next day and actually smelling it on MY breath just from being in a room with it for a few hours.

I respect everyone's rights to do what they want when it does not harm anyone else. But I find the choice to smoke absolutely incomprehensible.

Nobody I know who does it says that it gets them high. And yet, it's addictive as all get out and they can't quit.

What a wonderful product!

I want to be able to legally sell a product that has no value, does no good, doesn't cost much at all to produce, yet sells for quite a bit of money, and best of all, is addictive so that my customers have no choice but to buy it and which they initially get hooked on simply because it "looks cool" or they want to fit in with the hip crowd.

But even if I found such a product and thought about selling it, I'd be hard pressed to bring myself to do it if it killed people or caused the enormous pain, suffering, and economic loss that tobacco does.

How DO those people sleep at night? What a racket!
 
#366 · (Edited)
Sounds like alcohol and that's still legal. As long as the companies donate to the Politician both will continue to kill, and our elected will continue to get rich.

Look at our last President. He came into the White House broke, made $6,000,000 from book sales and left with $24,000,000. Guess he just clips a lot of coupons?:thumb:

Heck in Vietnam the cig companies gave them away for FREE to the guys in the field and EVERY C-ration box had cigs in them. Actually pretty smart marketing. Get the 18-20 year olds hooked and you have a customer for life.
 
#11 ·
Can't stand it. That doesn't mean I'm going to judge someone for it, but I for one cannot stand the practice, and I'll never try it. My father smoked/smokes, and I always asked him to quit, even before I should have known anything about smoking. Several people close to me either smoke, or have smoked. I can't stand the smell, and one group I WILL judge for it is the companies and executives. The SOBs are making money by KILLING PEOPLE. I have a few ideas on what could be done to them....
 
#15 ·
It's what I hate the most. Not only the noxious smoke but the attitude of (most) smokers...that is, that they should be able to smoke anywhere at anytime and their "right to smoke" should not be infringed upon. Thankfully, there has been a smoking ban put into effect in most of the larger cities nearby. I'll drive 40-50 miles to eat where there is no smoking allowed in the restaraunt. Isn't smoking an outdoor activity? What's the deal with smokers throwing their butts out everywhere? Anywhere you go, and I mean anywhere, there lays the mess discarded by the addicts. Pull up to a stop light and glance out. Hundreds of cigarette butts.....hundreds. What's the deal with the "door hovering"? Smokers are attracted by opening doors. They get as close as they can to wherever you have to walk in and out. The stench is nauseating.
Like I said, I hate it. Father, dead, cancer. Brother, dead, cancer. Mother, dead, emphysema/pneumonia. Aunt, emphesema, hopelessly addicted.
I could go on and on....but I'll spare you the venom.
 
#20 ·
Well i do believe it is a right to smoke, why is it any less a right to smoke than to own a gun? And why should some pub owner or anyone else be forced not to allow people to smoke in THEIR building because the government wants to stick their nose in it and say it doesn't smell nice, costing them money. If anti-smokers want to ban indoor smoking, they should pay the end result in the company's losses in taxes, sounds fair to me. No company should ever go out of business because anti-smokers don't like the smell, if they don't like smoking go find a place where the owner decides himself he doesn't want smoking inside. Everyone always says the government should mind their own business but somehow forget these thoughts when the subject of smoking comes up.
 
#16 ·
Okay the only thing i don't like is when people say it should be illegal.
1. It's a choice, if you don't want to smoke or you're worried about the dangers, don't try it or quit, simple.
2. Second hand smoke is no more harmful than chlorinated water by real studies and should not be considered a health risk.
3. The nazis were the first to create the idea of second hand smoke, hitler being strongly against smoking, so how much credibility can you give to his main beliefs.
4. If the tobacco companies are blamed for cancer, shouldn't Smirnoff be blamed for some guy out there with liver disease.
5. The World Health Organization (WHO) has over 70% of their funds come from big pharmacy, benefiting greatly from people thinking it's harder to quit than it really is and from their stop-smoking products. Also ever notice how they say smoking-related deaths, what this includes is anything that smokers show have an elevated risk of, no matter how small the risk is.
6. Ever hear the anti-smokers say that all of the longest living people on were smokers, surprised?

Check out these links if you don't believe me:

http://www.forces.org/evidence/hamilton/other/oldest.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/files/premat.htm

http://www.cagecanada.ca/Tobacco_Control.php

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/...al_association/cmaj/vol-160/issue-2/0180a.htm

http://www.smokescam.com/report.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/life.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/nazi.htm

http://www.forces.org/evidence/epafraud/etsfrau.htm
 
#591 · (Edited)
2. Second hand smoke is no more harmful than chlorinated water by real studies and should not be considered a health risk.
From the CDC:
For adults who do not smoke, exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate harmful effects on the heart and blood vessels and can cause coronary heart disease and stroke. Among adults who do not smoke, secondhand smoke causes nearly 34,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year in the U.S.


In college I hung out with smokers. Every morning, I cough up a ton of brown crap. I changed crowds and stopped hanging out with smokers. I stopped coughing up brown crap.
 
#17 · (Edited)
smoking effects

I smoked about 3 packs a day from 61 till 70. Started in the Navy. I quit about 1,000 times. I worked for Collins Radio at the time. I was having headaches that I would take 6 to 8 excederins at one time and still not effect it.

I finally found out the main reason I could not quit. I realized that if I quit I could NEVER have another cigarette. Finally I accepted that and went and bought a Sears Radial Arm Saw with my 1st year savings. I never had another cigarette. I still have that saw and it still works great.

My headaches stopped after awhile but I never really tied it to the cigarettes because I still had some. My wife still smoked.

In the 80's I had an engineering company in Idaho and we had a client that had gotten extreme exposure to urea-formeldahyde from the insulation put into their house. We were working in that area and did an huge amount of research into allergies, toxins, etc. We had 3' and 4' stacks of research papers.

During that time I would get a splitting headache just passing someone on the street that was smoking. Others I could be in a room for 30 minutes with smokers before getting a headache. It was due to the particular chemicals in that praticular brand of cigarettes.

Since then it has gotten somewhat better but I still get sinus swelling and head congestion from being around someone that is smoking or even has recently smoked. So, there is really no way anyone can smoke without seriously impacting someone else.

What we determined from the research is that every person begins life with a specific level of tolerance to every individual toxin. It depends on that individual just what that level is. During life we are exposed to a varying level of toxins. Every exposure reduces our tolerance to that toxin. Eventually we get to the level where we are impaired by that toxin. Some people are born below the level, such as peanut butter allergy.

Those born with the reactions may grow less intolerant but those who are exposed during life do not recover very much. So, as you are exosed to the toxins in cigarettes you gradually become more and more susceptable to adverse effects of the toxin. Just as I did.

Once you have gotten to the point where it is easily discernable it is too late. It will get worse but you will never get much better. If you are around kids they are affected vastly more than adults and will be adversly affected for life.

The idea that smoking cigarettes only affects those that actually smoke is not supported by any research or evidence. 100% of the evidence demonstrates that anyone who is contacted by that smoke WILL be adversly affected. Those that have allready been sensitized will be immediately impacted by having headaches, congestion and other impairments.

If you think the smoke isn't reaching them, a good comparative is to consider our little hunting buddy, the skunk. If a skunk sprays where you are smoking, anyplace that scent is detected is where you smoke will be detected also. Anyone that could smell the skunk spray will be negatively affected by your smoke.

Hope this might shed a little light on the subject.
 
#34 ·
I smoked about 3 packs a day from 61 till 70. Started in the Navy. I quit about 1,000 times. I worked for Collins Radio at the time. I was having headaches that I would take 6 to 8 excederins at one time and still not effect it.

I finally found out the main reason I could not quit. I realized that if I quit I could NEVER have another cigarette. Finally I accepted that and went and bought a Sears Radial Arm Saw with my 1st year savings. I never had another cigarette. I still have that saw and it still works great.

My headaches stopped after awhile but I never really tied it to the cigarettes because I still had some. My wife still smoked.

In the 80's I had an engineering company in Idaho and we had a client that had gotten extreme exposure to urea-formeldahyde from the insulation put into their house. We were working in that area and did an huge amount of research into allergies, toxins, etc. We had 3' and 4' stacks of research papers.

During that time I would get a splitting headache just passing someone on the street that was smoking. Others I could be in a room for 30 minutes with smokers before getting a headache. It was due to the particular chemicals in that praticular brand of cigarettes.

Since then it has gotten somewhat better but I still get sinus swelling and head congestion from being around someone that is smoking or even has recently smoked. So, there is really no way anyone can smoke without seriously impacting someone else.

What we determined from the research is that every person begins life with a specific level of tolerance to every individual toxin. It depends on that individual just what that level is. During life we are exposed to a varying level of toxins. Every exposure reduces our tolerance to that toxin. Eventually we get to the level where we are impaired by that toxin. Some people are born below the level, such as peanut butter allergy.

Those born with the reactions may grow less intolerant but those who are exposed during life do not recover very much. So, as you are exosed to the toxins in cigarettes you gradually become more and more susceptable to adverse effects of the toxin. Just as I did.

Once you have gotten to the point where it is easily discernable it is too late. It will get worse but you will never get much better. If you are around kids they are affected vastly more than adults and will be adversly affected for life.

The idea that smoking cigarettes only affects those that actually smoke is not supported by any research or evidence. 100% of the evidence demonstrates that anyone who is contacted by that smoke WILL be adversly affected. Those that have allready been sensitized will be immediately impacted by having headaches, congestion and other impairments.

If you think the smoke isn't reaching them, a good comparative is to consider our little hunting buddy, the skunk. If a skunk sprays where you are smoking, anyplace that scent is detected is where you smoke will be detected also. Anyone that could smell the skunk spray will be negatively affected by your smoke.

Hope this might shed a little light on the subject.
Good information. A lot has been learned about this kind of thing recently. There is a whole new field of study concerning how genes are switched on and off by environmental factors. So even twins, who are supposed to be genetically identical are not because their exposures, lifestyle, etc., are never identical.

And interestingly, environmental exposures DO affect what we pass on to our grandchildren. Look up epigenetics if you're interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

Well i do believe it is a right to smoke, why is it any less a right to smoke than to own a gun? And why should some pub owner or anyone else be forced not to allow people to smoke in THEIR building because the government wants to stick their nose in it and say it doesn't smell nice, costing them money. If anti-smokers want to ban indoor smoking, they should pay the end result in the company's losses in taxes, sounds fair to me. No company should ever go out of business because anti-smokers don't like the smell, if they don't like smoking go find a place where the owner decides himself he doesn't want smoking inside. Everyone always says the government should mind their own business but somehow forget these thoughts when the subject of smoking comes up.
Is it legal for me to fire my gun anywhere I want?

Is it legal for me to play golf anywhere I want?

Is it legal for me to ride a skateboard anywhere I want?

The point is very simple:

If what you're doing harms or annoys others, then they can vote to make it illegal. Why is this so hard for smokers to understand?

And interestingly, even in Wyoming, where we're a bunch of ********, restaurants in cities that have banned smoking in all public spaces have found that despite their fears, their revenues actually increased. That's probably because more non-smokers choose to go out to eat when they know they won't have their meals ruined by the stench of cigarette smoke.

Some of us are old enough to remember employees smoking in offices, mechanics smoking out in the shop while working on our car, and when I was in college I worked nights as a janitor and had to clean the ashtrays in the banks I cleaned and even the doctors offices.

When you mentioned restaurants, I remember watching smokers put their cigarettes out in the plates or the the food they did not eat and then smearing the black ash all in the food and around the plate....remember even seeing the old "short order cooks" cooking with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth with an ash about an inch long ready to fall off it.
A friend of mine was in the Navy on submarines. He said that their cook made the BEST coffee in the world. Everyone on the sub loved it and could never find anything that came close but they could never get the cook to divulge his secret. Then, one day, someone found out what it was.

He'd throw his already smoked stogie butt into the top of the percolator :)

The high taxes on cigarettes more than covers those problems so that is a non-issue.
Not even close, actually.
 
#19 ·
Tobacco is a vile weed
T'was the devil that sowed the seed
It empties your pockets and burns your clothes.
It makes a chimney out of your nose.

I smoked too many years, but have been off the stuff since September, "87.
My wife for eight months more than that.

Things taste better and the house no longer has the "smoke haze', nor do the cars.,

I can't recommend smoking, but if you have to, please do it outside.

Yes, I still do miss my pipe on ocassion.

all the best to all
blueridgeranger
 
#21 ·
Smoke em if ya got em...we need the tax revenue in order to speed up the undoing of the American Way (tm) by the Chicagoans in D.C.

Some of the greatest people I've ever known have been smokers.
Did it kill some of them, yes, more than likely.

Tobacco use is one of the freedoms that humans can choose.
Many people actually enjoy its pleasures.
Users are now considered lower than pond scum and have been demonized.

Those willing to give up freedom for a measure of security deserve neither freedom or security or some such...

I am a former butthead.
 
#24 ·
Some of us are old enough to remember employees smoking in offices, mechanics smoking out in the shop while working on our car, and when I was in college I worked nights as a janitor and had to clean the ashtrays in the banks I cleaned and even the doctors offices.

When you mentioned restaurants, I remember watching smokers put their cigarettes out in the plates or the the food they did not eat and then smearing the black ash all in the food and around the plate....remember even seeing the old "short order cooks" cooking with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth with an ash about an inch long ready to fall off it.
 
#23 ·
Everyone in society that pays taxes or buys health insureance pays the price, all the treatments for cancer, emphasema, brocites,ect, not to mention all of the automotive accidents, industrial accidents from smoking, how many children have died in the womb from smoking mothers?
 
#28 ·
The automotive accidents, industrial accidents and defected babies from smoking are not cause by smoking though, that should be considered abuse such as drinking while driving, drinking while pregnant, etc. Or even some idiot that accidently kills himself or others with a gun, all liberal ideas. If you used those reasons tobacco, alcohol and guns would be banned.
 
#32 ·
i started when i was 13, i will be 39 this year and i quit 2 months ago yesterday. if i had known it was this easy i would have stopped years ago. i haven't tried the patches or the gum or pills. just will power and alot of prayer. but i understand people that smoke. i never could stand whiney people that have never smoked telling me how bad it was for me or that it was gonna kill me just because they didn't like the smell. i was able to read before i started smoking and i can hear all the stuff on tv its not like you are telling people something they don't know. i refuse to be one of those people that quits and then can't stand to be around it. the smoke doesn't bother me and it doesn't bother me to see other people smoke.

but for anybody who is worried about how hard it is to quit, don't be. its alot easier than you think. and i have 2 new 10/22s and a new to me SIG P220 ST with the money i didn't spend on cigarettes :)
 
#35 ·
Ex smoker here. I smoked for about a year and half and then quit. Wasn't as addicted as some get...so a lot easier for me to quit then some I suppose.

I have lots of friends/family who do smoke, and thats their choice. I think it's disgusting though. The smell drives me insane, the smoke annoys me and I am always complaining at my husband about his and quitting because I can't stand ashtrays/cigarette packs/or the kind if I have to clean it up. YUCK!

My mother has had Lung cancer as well as other types (remission for years now) and now has emphysema and still smokes. Ugh....so many choices to have stopped years ago! Uncle....Lung cancer, yep...still smoking as well. See, here why I quit? I know better.

I figure I've had enough health issues I can't control...don't need any caused by something I was stupid enough to do to myself.
 
#38 ·
The only way I will ever smoke is if I'm on FIRE.

It killed my Mom when she was 58....I will be 58 this year.

I hate being around people that smoke, the smoke is very irritating and it makes me sick if I am in an enclosed area with it.

Thank goodness for anti smoking in restaurant laws. When I first moved to TN there was still smoking in restaurants. Do not even think of arguing that they had smoking and non smoking sides. When I can sit in the non smoking side and reach over and TOUCH someone who is smoking does not do me much good.

I have no hate for smokers and I think some times the laws go a bit too far but none of us should have to be in a enclosed area with smokers.

There was the argument above about not being able to shoot in restaurants. I see it same way. I can carry my gun in a restaurant but I can not shoot it. Smokers can carry their smokes there but I'm very glad they can not light up.

Face it people smoking sucks. It is a stupid habit. It kills. It costs a lot of money not only to the smoker but to society.

I would never be for making it illegal however.
 
#42 ·
Can;t stand it.... my mom died from it. Begged her as a kid growing up to stop, she did... too late. I remember her asking for a cigarette two hours after having 1/2 of one lung and a 1/4 of the other removed. Everyone in my house smoked and I never understood why...... I never got used to the smell, if I catch even the slightest whiff of a cigarette I feel like I lose my breather for that moment.

If you want a place to start with "health care reform"..... right here! Tax the crap out Tobacco and Alcohol too......... :hide: did I just say that out loud:eek:

OK ...just tobacco:D
 
Top