I smoke because I want to

I smoke because I want to, I enjoy it, it’s as simple as that. If I ever give up it will be if and when I want to.

Since the ban on public smoking, I have not been out to a bar and seldom go to restaurants. The fact that I am forced not to smoke rather than choose not to smoke makes it unbearable. My generation, whose parents fought against tyranny and totalitarianism, finds dictatorship totally unacceptable.

However, like all smokers I know, I am always willing to compromise. I recently bought an e-cigarette but many places have banned those too because they simply don't like the look of people who smoke whether it is real or fake.

I am angry with the government. What have I ever done to any of them that led them to believe it's ok to treat me like a criminal? I have never done anything illegal in all my years. I have always worked hard and paid my taxes and I know damn well that I have never harmed anyone else as long as I have lived.

Anti-smokers are spiteful. I ask again - what did I ever do to them? I am not asking to sit at their table and blow smoke in their face. They are free to believe all the piffle they are fed, if it suits their own phobic prejudice, but they have no right to micro-manage my life or that of anyone else who disagrees with them, or is more tolerant than they are.

I would like to have a choice of a smoking bar or smoking restaurant - even a damned cafe would do. How about the old greasy spoons? I am sure the smokerphobic health freaks wouldn't go within ten feet of those places, either, but still they'd demand them because they are selfish. It's not just that they want it all. It is that they don't want smokers to have anything.

I want to enjoy what I have left of my life. I've worked hard for it, contributed and done my bit but my life is now controlled by faceless, nameless bureaucrats who haven't been breathing air as long as I've been smoking but think they know more about me than I do.

They moan about and intimidate the tobacco companies via its consumers while shamelessly taking the funding to do it from Big T's main competitor for the nicotine market - Big P. These pharmaceutical companies are responsible for millions of deaths.

One day they will pay for what they have done. I hope they are finally brought to account in my lifetime so that they can cause no further damage to my children's and grandchildren's generation as they have done to mine.

I believe you're just in denial. No offense, but I use this excuse all the time as well. Why would any sane person want to put cancer causing chemicals into their body? I use chewing tobacco and I really do enjoy it myself, well at least the nicotine kick I get from it.

I also smoke because I enjoy it.

I agree I think having a choice of smoke or smoke free would be nice, and if the staff signed a waiver that could be the way to get around the lawsuits that could follow after working in such places.

We are all responsible for our own choices.

I will give up, however I will not go the way of E-Cigarettes, once it's gone it's gone.

I do respect the fact that it is harmful so do not mind smoking outdoors, as that is the way it has always been since I started.

I don't even smoke inside at home, as I don't like the smell in the house.

The NHS will quite happily have you addicted to Nicotine in any form as long as it isn't tobacco.

I smoke and i love it, when in public i try not to smoke or move away from others not to bother people with the smell, but people tend to have to share how they feel about it.
# off and leave me alone.

a reply to: N3k9Ni

I am a Libertarian and support your right to smoke or pretty much anything else you want to do. I think the root problem you have is your smoking often affects others. I find tobacco smoke to be very unpleasant so my question is don't you think other people have a right to not inhale your potentially unhealthy choices?

originally posted by: Metallicus
I am a Libertarian and support your right to smoke or pretty much anything else you want to do.

Same. To further that I think if a private bar/restaurant wants to restrict smoking that is their prerogative and the same if they want to accommodate smokers. Let the free market dictate.

a reply to: N3k9Ni

Smoking is bad or you. Sodas are bad for you. Booze is bad for you. Red meat is bad or you. Junk food is bad or you. Salt is bad for you. Eggs are bad for you. Candy is bad or you. Driving is dangerous. Living in cities is dangerous. You might die lying in a plane. ISIS is going to kill everyone. Radiation from Japan is going to kill everyone. Meteorites will crash and kill us all. Terrorists will use biological, chemical, nuclear weapons and kill us all.


And finally. . . . . . .

The zombie apocalypse.

OP? My suggestion to you is the same I give everyone. Live your life, do what you want. As long as you aren't hurting anyone? Then enjoy!

And with that long post, I'm going for a smoke right now!

a reply to: N3k9Ni

I am angry with the government. What have I ever done to any of them that led them to believe it's ok to treat me like a criminal? I have never done anything illegal in all my years. I have always worked hard and paid my taxes and I know damn well that I have never harmed anyone else as long as I have lived.

I could be wrong but I don't think the government has too much to do with keeping business owner's from allowing their clientele to smoke on private property...If a private restaurant/bar owner has a 'no-smoking' policy,you have to respect that policy. Your the only one being selfish by demanding private business owner's change their policy's to suit your preference.

Also your not a criminal...Last time I checked smoking tobacco for the most part is completely legal.

a reply to: N3k9Ni

I used to smoke cigs. I quit. But I agree, publicly smoking outdoors isn't bothering anyone, as long as you don't throw your butts on the ground.

Why is it so hard for people to just live and let live?

I live in Utah. We have a law out here called the zion curtain. It says you are not allowed to pour alcohol in front of anyone at a restaurant. I had to build a wall at my bar so that my customers couldn't see my staff pour draft beers, or shots, or even see where we store the booze.

I was fined 1000 dollars because my customers could see fridge we stored beer in.

If it's not harming anyone or anything, whats the big problem?

I am angry with the government. What have I ever done to any of them that led them to believe it's ok to treat me like a criminal?

Blame government if you want but I think the one you should blame is ME. Yes, me and all the other people who voted for these restrictions on your freedom. All of us who backed these draconian measures.

We did this not because we wanted to oppress you, but because we came to understand how it was not your freedom that was the issue but the addiction that was fostered in you by the tobacco industry to get you to keep helping them in their nasty profit scheme.

We learned how children were tempted to start. We learned how the military commissaries were given cheap cigs to sell cheap to bored soldiers to get them into addiction. We learned how controlled the smoking population with adds that made it all seem so romantic and masculine, and feminine when needed.

So yeah, I get it, you feel like a victim. Well you are. Twice now. Once by them, and once by me. Only they did not give a # about your health, only your money. Me? I wanted to help break the stranglehold these corporations held over us with their poisons. My lungs are still recuperating from my long years of smoking when I thought that it was my decision to smoke. I then found out that the decision to smoke was not mine alone. I had been brainwashed to smoke and the addiction made me love it until it nearly killed me.

So blame me N3k, not government. They are only my tool to help you and all the others.

It's about forcing others to inhale your smoke and bear the stink of tobacco (or w/e), all because you want to smoke.

You don't get to inflict that on other people, not anymore.

a reply to: Metallicus

I totally agree but I don't think the government should be the one to decide if I can smoke in a private establishment. It should be up to the owner. If someone doesn't want to be where smoking is allowed, they should go to a non smoking establishment.

Smoker here....currently we're enjoying "fish fry fridays" for lent and eating take out in our jams, cig in hand an everything!

We've ramped up out list of delivery take out places and made a nice small patio out back.
If those companies don't want my business because by law or decision they have chosen to go smoke free, fine.

BTW....our air is so polluted if you're breathing you are screwed.

First off S & F and long ashes.

When I Enlisted in the Navy my home town did not have any smoking ordinances / bans, Property owners got to choose which way they wanted things to go. If they had a smoking section most of them had built it into their design. 10 years later I come back home and there was about 4 restaurants and bars every where else has went non smoking by government decree.

Of course this upset me but in the case of Progressive city councils there is little that can be done.

Now my home town is down to one Restaurant with in the city limits that still allows smoking (only because of a grandfather clause the second it changes ownership that will be gone) and now the Bars are starting to go Non smoking. Worse is the logic that a small group of bars are using to try and drive a ban though the council.

There are a group of eight bars owned by 3 people who are claiming that the others that allow smoking have an "unfair" advantage over them and thus want smoking out of all bars. They have been defeated in city council meeting 6 times now with city hall getting packed with people that are upset at the idea of a stricter ban... But they are relentless.

What gets me is most people do not know that cigarettes are Taxed almost 400%, so what would cost 1.25 runs closer to 6.00 , and where does that "Tax Stamp" money go "Children's Health Care Programs" like CHIP. The Irony is if all smokers were Stopped and This Insane Prohibition were to go all the way though the cost of those social programs would fall onto everyone else to keep them at the same level of funding. Hmm go figure smokers are good for something...

a reply to: NateTheAnimator

Where I live, the government has put a ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants. Some bar owners tried to fight it and were closed down and/or arrested.

a reply to: N3k9Ni

I understand how you feel; I'm an ex-smoker and gave it up by choice.

Here's why I gave it up. Lung Cancer? We're all dying of cancer of one form or another and Lung Cancer? Its a relatively quick death. So fear of lung cancer wasn't it.

What got me to quit was the sight of so many old people in wheel chairs with oxygen tanks. I want to be able to walk to my funeral; I don't want to spend years in a wheel chair. The biggest damage smoking does is to the cardio-pulmonary function.

Want to save your legs? Quit smoking cigarettes and go to e-smoke.

a reply to: N3k9Ni
I'll believe "I smoke because I want to" when I see a smoker happily smoking nicotine-free cigarettes on the regular.

And even IF people only smoke because they want to, that doesn't mean everyone else around you has to be subject to your habit. Liberty is being free to believe and do what you want so long as that doesn't impose on others' rights to the same - keep your habit to yourself, there's nothing unfair about that.

Hell, I'm currently smoking again, but I'm not going to throw a fit about not being able to smoke in certain areas. Quit lying to yourself, that's junkie mind tricks.

ETA:
Hold up...

...These pharmaceutical companies are responsible for millions of deaths.

One day they will pay for what they have done. I hope they are finally brought to account in my lifetime so that they can cause no further damage to my children's and grandchildren's generation as they have done to mine.

This is some kind of crazy joke, right? You know tobacco use is implicitly responsible for almost half a million preventable deaths every single year in the US alone, right? Big pharma can't even come close, come on now...

a reply to: N3k9Ni

I have asthma and I can't be around anyone who smokes,wears perfume,uses hairspray,
scented soaps,scented laundry detergent...
If I am exposed to any of these things,my throat will start burning and I will have a hard
time breathing.If I am around someone long enough,I could develop pneumonia.

I do appreciate that you would use the e-cig but many places ban them as well.I believe
if you knew your smoking bothered someone else physically you would put it out.I have
become a prisoner in my home because of my asthma.When I go out I have to keep a mask
in my purse and my inhaler at all times.

a reply to: N3k9Ni

Where I used to live, the "city" run as usual by creep bastard Democrats determined to polish their "progressive" credentials banned smoking in all bars and restaurants. But........go outside the city limits and you can smoke anywhere. So.........pretty soon the bars and many of the restaurants in the "city" closed down; some re-opened outside the city limits.

So.......those who don't like freedom live in the city and those who do like freedom.....they moved out a long time ago.

I'm with the OP. Let's all smoke together! With all the crap they put in our food, the toxins released into the air, the junk in the water, the least concern of people should be cigarettes.

"We don't want them to give the big tobacco companies money!" It's my damn money. If I want to spend it on hookers and '___', I can spend it on hookers and '___'. You're not paying my medical bills, let me smoke my cigarettes and you worry about your gluten.

Edit: I'm not saying there shouldn't be some respect for people with medical ailments. However, I've heard more than once "don't smoke near my kids, they have *insert medical condition.* Certainly, I won't smoke near your child, and I will put my cigarette out if you ask me to do so, nicely, but please STOP FOLLOWING ME AROUND OUTSIDE. I had a woman come up to me to tell me she had asthma and that I shouldn't smoke around her. I was outside, at a camp ground, nearly 100ft away from her. I kept smoking.