if it weren't for a couple of things. I think I wanted to smoke as a kid mainly because I loved the smell of cigars and pipes from as young as I can remember. I ended up smoking cigarettes hanging around with some cute girls that smoked. That was in the mid 70's.
What really pisses me off if true was their enhancing the nicotine content of tobacco and addatives that increased it's effect and the strength of addiction. To some extent I did it to myself. I wanted to smoke even though I was told it was bad for me. I liked it and kept doing it for years with no regrets.
Did the tobacco companies underhanded tactics make it harder for me to quit on my first couple of attempts? That possibility pisses me off. I may have been able to quit several years and a few thousand dollars earlier. Had I quit at 44 instead of 54, I could look back at it as not having been such a bad deal. Anti-smokers can think what they want but getting to enjoy smoking all those years was not all bad. Then it would be the expense I would regret most.
Even as a nonsmoker now, I won't be hypocritical. I still think penalizing smokers is wrong. Taxing it to death may seem like a good plan but you are really screwing people that can't quit. I many cases they are among those that can least afford it. For decades, people were being told they should smoke and that was even subsidized by our government. At the same time the anti-smoking campaigns were also going but the promotion overwhelmed that. So you really have a lot of people that only did what they thought they should od that are now still feeling like they are hopelessly addicted.
Another thing I see is harrassing smokers at work. So someone comes in from their break after having a cigarette outside. For most of us, about the time we take off our coats and sit back down and get to work, any lingering smell is well on it's way to being gone. Just because you are able to detect that someone was smoking and it pisses you off does not mean you should go and whine about it being some really offensive odor! That's bullshit! I've been a nonsmoker around smokers, a smoker and now am back to not doing it again. I smell the same thing everyone else does and it is not like body odor or bad breath. There are some idiotic heavy smokers that are an exception, but for the most part, it's no big deal.
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