Do you smoke, do your friends and colleagues?

[listsandbudgets]

I was wondering about this. I saw someone smoking yesterday and realised I don't think that I know anyone who does.

When I was growing up though it was really common. My mum smoked 20+ a day until I was about 10 when she decided to give up. My dad smoked until I was nearly 20 (and probably carried on in secret!!)

People must smoke or they'd not be for sale and I'd not keep seeing cigarette butts on the pavement but how common is it now? Also they seem to cost a fortune - about £10 a pack - that must really add up for heavy smokers.

DH does. I vape, but cadge a few if I'm pissed.

My mum has always been a very heavy smoker, also both her parents and several of her siblings do/did. Grandma still smoked right up to her death of emphysema. Mum probably will too.
Dad and none of his family smoke.
My brother used to smoke a bit in his teens and twentys but I think his wife has straightened him out now.
None of my schoolfriends took it up and none of my subsequent friends smoked. Maybe I gravitated toward sporty folk. There would be the odd spliff at a party in our twentys but rarely a smoker.
I'm glad its declining popularity now. I also hope that the binge drinking culture in the uk goes the same way before my kids are teens.

I know more smokers than not, most of them are social smokers only though. I quit because it's not compatible with exercise. But still do the bisto kid when someone else is.

I do miss a smoke after a meal. It was the best one.

The banning of the menthol smokes is just weird. Why do that?!

DH used to and now vapes as do a couple of friends. I used to smoke socially but don't anymore.

Me-no
Friends-no
Colleagues-no.
Family-no

I dont know any smokers now i quit a few years ago even my mum who smoked for 40 odd years stopped, I do still miss smoking sometimes

Oh a neighbour secretly smokes but not very well as the whole street knows

I smoke, my boyfriend isn’t daily smoker like me, but he smokes on nights out and will sometimes have one in the evening with me.

Most of my friends smoke, smoking is far more common in our community compared to society as a whole.

I’ve never smoked at all, not even tried it. And currently I don’t know a single person who smokes or vapes in my family, friends, at work or in my wider circle. I’m very anti smoking so it suits me well!

I was going to say Shuttup, when i used to know smokers a lot used to get them duty free, that not being an option at the moment must be hitting a few people in the wallet.

15-20 a day here. I roll my own skinny cigs. My habit, I don't inflict it on others and I sure add hell aren't going to try and quit during lock down.

My DM smokes. Nobody else (including DP and I) smoke or ever has. I don’t look down on my mother for doing it - she picked up the unfortunate habit during a physically abusive relationship in her early 20’s and has never been able to kick it. Sad, really ...

@TazSyd the things you mentioned do not directly affect other people's health like smoking

Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers. Secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds are toxic and about 70 can cause cancer.1,2,3,4

Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke.1

There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke causes numerous health problems in infants and children, including more frequent and severe asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).1,4
Smoking during pregnancy results in more than 1,000 infant deaths annually.4
Some of the health conditions caused by secondhand smoke in adults include coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer.1,4

@TazSyd

Exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and can cause coronary heart disease and stroke.2,4,5

Secondhand smoke causes nearly 34,000 premature deaths from heart disease each year in the United States among nonsmokers.4
Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25–30%.1
Secondhand smoke increases the risk for stroke by 20−30%.4
Secondhand smoke exposure causes more than 8,000 deaths from stroke annually.4
Breathing secondhand smoke can have immediate adverse effects on your blood and blood vessels, increasing the risk of having a heart attack.2,3,4

Breathing secondhand smoke interferes with the normal functioning of the heart, blood, and vascular systems in ways that increase the risk of having a heart attack.
Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can damage the lining of blood vessels and cause your blood platelets to become stickier. These changes can cause a deadly heart attack.
People who already have heart disease are at especially high risk of suffering adverse effects from breathing secondhand smoke and should take special precautions to avoid even brief exposures.1

@TazSyd

Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adults who have never smoked.4

Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20–30%.2
Secondhand smoke causes more than 7,300 lung cancer deaths among U.S. nonsmokers each year.4
Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer-causing substances and poisons as smokers.2,3,4
Even brief secondhand smoke exposure can damage cells in ways that set the cancer process in motion.4
As with active smoking, the longer the duration and the higher the level of exposure to secondhand smoke, the greater the risk of developing lung cancer.4

@TazSyd i can keep going but I wont clog up the thread any further. Of course there are things I do that "annoy" others, but being annoyed is the least of anyone's problems where smoking is concerned

Neither of my parents smoke but 3 out of 6 of their DC did/do. I’m one of them. 2 out of 4 of DH’s siblings smoke, he doesn’t. His parents were both smokers until they were in their 60’s. I would say around a third of our friends smoke, aged range from early 30’s to late 40’s.

I never smoke in public, only in the garden in my smoking jacket same as MrsPear! I also have a smoking beanie so my hair doesn’t smell. We have a wooden gazebo that I sit in if it’s raining. My smoke is not inflicted on anyone else. I can sit through social events without one, not a drinker so don’t frequent pubs.

I am pretty sporty too. Currently do a 10km walk/jog daily. Used to have a fag before a intense 2 hour gym session until gyms closed. It’s a vice but I think there’s a lot worse I could be doing .

I only smoke menthol so will probably have to quit in the near future but will stockpile some before the 20th.

@SillyCow6

Perhaps you do things that more than annoy others. Maybe some people look down on you? You may not have noticed as they may be avoiding you. I tend to avoid people who look down on others.

No matter how much you dislike smoking, looking down on others says more about you than it does about them.

I used to be the only one out of my friends who didn’t smoke. Now they have all given up.

I have to say I don’t know anyone who still does. I know a few who vape instead.

It’s definitely less “fashionable” than it used to be.

Noticed them all smoking in Normal People and it seems strange to see on TV.

I don't and if I'm honest wouldn't choose to be friends with anyone who did.
I'm fascinated by those on here who smoke but say they will be giving up soon because theirs will be banned. Why not just give up now?
To you who do smoke - please don't take this as patronising as I'm genuinely interested - how do you enjoy it knowing the damage it does to your body?

Having grown up in a smoking family I'm very anti smoking so have very few friends who smoke. In my generation on one side of the family hardly anyone of us smoke.

I can't think of any colleges who smoke, I know a lot of our cleaners do and I'm sure there will be more others but I don't know any.

I smoke, my DP smokes, most of my friends smoke, my family don't and only 4 people out of 30ish smoke at my work place.

According to the majority on mn it is fine to do a line of coke or smoke a spliff with the kids around

That's not even remotely true though, is it? If you did an AIBU poll on that question, hardly anyone wsay it was ok.

TazSyd - looking down on someone really isn't comparable with causing them to get cancer.

On the upside, my parents' smoking put me off ever trying a cigarette. On the downside I used to get bronchitis practically every time I got a cold (until a while after I left home), and who knows whether or how much my cancer risk has been increased by years of exposure to cigarette smoke.