to think that people have the right to smoke without being villified as if they were using cocaine?

[stitch]

i'm a non smoker. make that a never smoker, apart form one incident when i was 13 and had a huge coughing fit.
i am really really shocked at how people are reacting towards people smoking. it is not the worst thing in the world, and i just feel really uncomfortable athow they are making smokers out to be pariahs.

well, yes ds, perhaps there are other analogies that would work better in the thread title. but i think you understand my meaning.

hardly, DSM, but you're free to keep telling yourself that.

It doesn't have any ramifications for most of the people who bitch about it though - most of 'em aren't smokers and don't live with anyone who smokes inside the house. The just like judging.

(pruners, thank goodness)

Ugh, I ahte the smell.

Walking through busy Oxford City on friday and everyone seemed to be smoking, blowing their stinky fag breath in mine and the DC's face.
If you want to smoke, fine, but don't make me breath it.

The same goes for bad breath, BO and farts.

no, I don't think it is a 'nothing' act pruners - I am disgusted when I see people smoking in cars with their kids in for example.

However, it is possible to have a habit that you would rather not have and be responsible about the way you smoke. I do not smoke at home and I do not smoke near non-smokers. I'm really sorry about your dad, you have good reason to be angry about passive smoking.

Okay. So bad analogy, and lets not let this turn into another flaming cocaine debate.

I do know what you are getting at, and agree. Its noone elses business that I smoke, and I don't smoke in front of other non-consenting people. I don't smoke in my house, and I don't smoke in front of mine or anyone elses children.

yanbu, I also wish they'd stop talking about smoking on TV, going on and on and on about how many people are quitting etc. Everytime I see that kind of thing I want to light up, and I quit nearly 3 years ago.

Still don't know what to have for breakfast now I can't have a fag with my coffee tho

Dh is a smoker.

Always outside, never in the car, playground, etc.

I do find it a paradox on MN, all the sympathy for addicts - you're often slated if you don't share in that - but not if you're a smoker.

Newsflash: nicotine and chemicals in cigarettes are addictive. Second only to heroin in terms of strength of addiction.

ALL addictions can affect other peoples' lives.

also agree with expat on the political issues related to cocaine use. I worked for a while at a solicitors, dealing mostly with cocaine importation cases - ie drug 'mules' coming largely from the Caribbean and Latin America. Their stories were depressing as hell and depressingly similar. I have also had the misfortune to be close to someone with a long term crack and cocaine addiction. The fallout on everyone around them from parents to partners to children is huge. I admit to having taken cocaine in the past and to thinking it was 'harmless'. I do not think so now. However, I would not villify someone for using it, but do feel angry at the belief that it is a fun, socially acceptable thing to do.

expat - what other addiction can impact directly on another person's life like smoking can?

If i stand next to a drug addict/alcoholic will i have to change my clothes cos i stink of heroin or whisky? No of course not. Smoking infiltrates other people's lives in a way no other addiction can.

Yes all addictions have repurcusions, but smoking is unique

as long as you don't smoke, harpo .

eh? expat? you lost me!

well, let's see, UC, how many crimes are committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or to get money for drugs?

how about looking up some stats on motor vehicle accidents and deaths resulting from driving whilst intoxicated?

let's just use heroin addiction as an example, since we're leaving coke aside here.

how does it affect people? and, in particular, innocent people in the West?

well, how do you think Al Queda gets money to fund terrorist operations?

take a guess. it's from a certain crop used to make heroin.

smoking is FAR from unique as far as the effect of addiction on others.

Message withdrawn

Well, gees, Pruni, I think I'd rather stand next to a smoker and go home and wash my clothes than stand next to Al Queda operative whose training was funded by heroin users.

I'd have thought that would have been fucking obvious, too.

I guess that's just me, though.

Or stand next to a sober smoker than some drunk idiot in a taxi queue whose liable to get violent if he thinks I've jumped the queue ahead of him.

It's an ADDICTION like any other.

And it's a legal activity.

Or stand next to a sober smoker than some drunk idiot in a taxi queue whose liable to get violent if he thinks I've jumped the queue ahead of him.

It's an ADDICTION like any other.

And it's a legal activity.

Totally agree expat.

There's a weird dichotomy where educated middle-class people who bring their re-usable bag to the shop and worry about their carbon footprint, and buy organic cotton and fair trade bananas because the workers aren't sprayed with chemicals etc.... will still take cocaine later that evening. As though it were made in a factory in Surbiton or something.

All those things you said happen to "other people" "other places".And i am really not meaning to sound uninterested in other people's lives because believe me in my limited way I am, and do/give what i can when i can to help.

But smoking affects ME. HERE. NOW.THIS EVENING. Heroin doesnt. Drink driving doesnt. Coke doesnt.

That is why it brings out such emotions in people

Oh yeah, fags very different from drugs.

Not keen to stand close to a smoker, but if they sit in all evening chainsmoking that is not a world problem.

Message withdrawn

I am not a smoker.

My mother has COPD. She's quit, but it's too late. It will shorten and ultimately end her life.

But that doesn't give me the right to villify her or others or make them out to be pariahs.

I recognise those feelings, Pruners - they're how my ex makes me feel, exactly. Smoking seems like a silly addiction in comparison, as its effects are so much less obvious than those of hard drugs. It is an addiction nonetheless. I started smoking about 14, I really hope that if I had got to, say, 20 without starting then I never would have started (as you say, it does seem a bit 'thick').

Oh Expat - I love you on drugs!