Smoking - I just don't get it
****Warning - lack of funnies**** Please move along if you are looking for an amusing post.

As the title suggests I genuinely do not understand why people smoke. They cost loads of money, make you smell, you have to stand out in the cold to do it and, best of all, every packet has a great big sign on it saying that they are going to make you die.

Imagine this scenario, it is the 1960's and at a board meeting of a big tobacco company. One chap pipes up (scuse the pun) and says that in 40 years, there will be conclusive proof that smoking kills, they will cost near-on £6 a packet, advertising will be banned and every packet must have a notice telling you that they are going to kill you, yet they will sell more than they do now. They would think he was a mentalist.

I have life insurance through my company and I get to see the costs per person on the policy. If you are a smoker your premiums literally double, not go up slightly but double. Now these insurance guys do not do that because they hate smoking, it is because they are statistically much more likely to pay out if you smoke. They just work on numbers.

It is something that is a little close to my heart (enough with the puns) as every single male on my dad's side of my family, since my great grandad, has had a heart attack before the age of sixty (45 in my grandad's case) and all were heavy smokers.

My brother is a perfect case in point. He is approaching 40, has 2 small kids, is fully aware of the family history, yet still smokes and has done so for many years. I know it is addictive and shite but I still genuinely cannot see how he can still smoke. It is utterly beyond me. In fact I'm the only one in my entire family who doesn't smoke. Crazy fools.

Anyway, it is obviously clear that I am one of those annoying anti-smokers but it is the one thing that people do that I find the hardest to comprehend.

As for those people who argue against the smoking ban, don't get me fecking started!
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 13:59, 9 replies)

The problem is that people start smoking in their early teens
when you want to be seen as rebellious and you feel like you will live forever and anyone over the age of 20 is old...and BAM! Addicted for life.

Nobody has ever taken up smoking at 27.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:15, closed)

I know someone who started smoking at 21
and he was proud of this.
(AyeMe, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:19, closed)

Apparently...
Since the smoking ban came in, adults have chosen to take up smoking simply to meet people of the opposite sex. Smirting, I think they call it.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:24, closed)

What a great idea.
Ignore my above post. I'm off to have a smirt!
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:26, closed)

Imagine if smoking hadn't been invented yet
Try going on Dragons' Den with the brilliant idea that you're going to try and sell little sticks that people set on fire and suck, on the assumption that governments won't be bothered about the health implications or the fact that your product is addictive.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:26, closed)

It's not just that it's "addictive"...
...it's FIERCELY addictive. Nearly everyone who smokes wants to stop (unless they don't have any cognitive ability). But, if you've never smoked then, trust me, you don't understand how taking them away sends your brain into a screaming scattery spiral of want and need. Took me three years to stop properly, and I still crave the fucking things now and again. Wish I had never started...only did it because my mates did when I was 16.
(Super Jet Shoes, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 14:27, closed)

I do kind of understand that
I have never been really addicted to anything myself before so it is hard for me to truly empathise, but I would have thought that having 2 small children and a serious family history of heart disease would be enough to make even the most addicted person stop.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 15:11, closed)

Impossible to empathise
It's all about the helpless, relentless nature of the addiction. It turns intelligent rational thinkers into primative beings responding only to chemical signals. When the craving comes, the children and the family history are erased for that moment from the brain. As soon as the smoke goes into the lungs and the chemical fix is satisfied, then rational thought returns. The smoker feels like a pratt for failing. Consider in the history of smoking, how many attempts have made to give up. Billions. Emperically we are destined to fail.
(Hansdown, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 16:54, closed)

I totally agree
I can't think of anything more to say than "I totally agree".
(mariam67, Tue 20 Oct 2009, 18:12, closed)