Lung Cancer Man

[cinema guy]

My grandfather smoked a pipe and died from lung cancer.

My dad started smoking when he was a teenager, switched to a pipe and then gave up when he started getting chest pains. That was more than 20 years ago and he says he still craves it.

Smoking is an addiction that some people find very difficult to quit. I imagine lung cancer man failed to do so until it was too late. But he has failed to realise that the OP has no power to stop his store selling tobacco, nor that one store stopping will make any difference. Heck, if prohibition is anything to go by, banning tobacco all together won't make any difference - people will still smoke because they enjoy it.

[godaistudios]

What gets me is that I can go into my local Walgreens and you can find the shelves selling cigarettes, cigars, etc, right next to the shelves with signs about quitting which house the Nicorette and the patch and so on.

It really is kind of absurd and pointless, isn't it?

"We say we want you to quit, but we don't really mean it."

[draftermatt]

What gets me is that I can go into my local Walgreens and you can find the shelves selling cigarettes, cigars, etc, right next to the shelves with signs about quitting which house the Nicorette and the patch and so on.

It really is kind of absurd and pointless, isn't it?

Not really. They also have condoms next to Yeast Infection creams and pregnancy tests.

Denis Leary

"It doesn't matter what you put on the packs, it's a drug we're addicted. You could put them in a black pack, with a scull and cross bones, called Tumors, and smokers would be lined up around the block. 'I've gotta get these new Tumors, I bet you get cancer just from lighting one up'"

[jedimaster91]

Nowadays when I see someone smoking, I get all giddy at the thought of future paychecks and retirement funds. When I graduate (May 11. WOO!), I will be doing diagnostic scans that detect cancers, and lung cancer is a biggie. So keep smoking, folks*. Keep me employed!

*No offence meant.

[Kalga]

I am a former smoker started when I was 12 quit at age 22

Really? Well...at least you quit, eh?

[sld72382]

I always find it funny when smokers know the risk yet continue to smoke anyway and say "My life, my choice we're all going to die eventually anyway."

Yeah we all know we're going to kick the bucket sooner or later. That's understood. What gets me is that smokers who say that (I can't group them all because there are smokers who hate it, yet still do it because they just can't quit) are similar to the same people who:

Believe that seat belt laws should be repealed.

Believe that helmet laws should be repealed.

They say the same line, "My life, my choice we're all going to die eventually anyway." Sorry, but I'd rather improve my chances of living a little longer.

And I'm going to stop now because anything further is fratching-worthy.

[edible_hat]

You must live in canada.

Nope, Australia. Tobbaco taxes fund (in part) http://www.quit.org.au/ and the associated mass media campaigns.

[Snowbird]

Why do you still sell tobacco products? Because we live in a capitalist society, tobacco is highly profitable, legal, and addictive, and so long as people choose to continue to buy it it will remain profitable! That's why! Now, I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's the truth. And it's more or less the same thing with alcohol and junk food. As long as people buy it, people will sell it.

Why? Because we don't live in a Demolition Man world where everything bad for you is considered illegal. (There was a whole list of stuff, but the ones that got me were spices, salt, and... sex? )

The customer is complaining to the wrong person, and there are plenty of things he could do besides harping at a clerk to try and make a change. He would just have to refocus his angry energy and not many people will do that.

I once watched paramedics resuscitate a prized pit bull who had passed out from smoke inhalation in a burning home. That always comes to mind when I think about smoking and lungs.

[simpleyme]

Really? Well...at least you quit, eh?

when i was 12 I could buy my own cigarettes all you had to do was tell them they were for your mom I am 36 now so depending on your age as to how long ago that seems my mom allowed me to smoke as she smoked at that age as well , no parent of the year award for her

I quit smoking after my son was born ( beat me with a wet noodle I smoked while pregnant) but once my baby was born I did not want him to breathe the smoke so I quit

my kids are teenagers now and I broke the family tradition everyone is over age 12 and so far no smokers

[Bagga]

And I cry nonsense to the suggestion that recent previous generations didnt know the perils of smoking. My step-dad used to call cigs coffin-nails.

Cigarettes were linked to heart and lung problems many decades ago, it's just that there were fewer studies that actually proved the fact.

There has been no justification for blaming someone else for the habit for well over 50 years now. And in those 50 years, you had plenty of time to force yourself to give up, so it is your own fault..... TWICE

[tropicsgoddess]

Hell, back in the forties and fifties, doctors used to encourage extremely shy people to smoke. They said it 'encouraged socialization'. They also said it assisted digestion. And of course, it was extremely fashionable.

Check THIS out!

Hell, even doctors were seen in tv commercials smoking cigarettes...among other things as well. Back then things were much more lax with smoking than now.

[Chromatix]

What gets me is that I can go into my local Walgreens and you can find the shelves selling cigarettes, cigars, etc, right next to the shelves with signs about quitting which house the Nicorette and the patch and so on.

It really is kind of absurd and pointless, isn't it?

"We say we want you to quit, but we don't really mean it."

I think it's meant to be the other way around. The cigarettes were always on display - now they put the quitting aids in the same place to remind smokers that there's a (relatively) easy way to quit.

Meanwhile, they're making it harder to find convenient places *to* smoke (in some countries). This does mean that you find groups of smokers by the entrances to buildings, and smoking while walking on the street, but I'd like to think it helps them realise how much they depend on their habit.

The next stage is to severely limit the advertising for these things. Make it less easy to get started in the first place. Would be best to raise the age limit for sales to 21, too - the young are more impressionable.

Finland has discussed the possibility of ending cigarette sales by some specific date (some years into the future). It was only a thought-experiment, but it was designed to push the debate in the right direction.

[iradney]

They've already limited the advertising in my country (South Africa). You don't see big smoking brands in the movies, TV, magazines or sponsoring sports events anymore. Also have very few designated smoking areas - I don't think the rate of people smoking has gone down much.

That being said, quitting smoking is 1, 000, 000 times harder than starting smoking....

[ditchdj]

Next time you see "Lung Cancer Man" tell him my mother-in-law has been smoking two packs a day for 52 YEARS (since she was 13) and she's healthier than I am. In fact she doesn't even get as many chest colds as I do, and I dont even smoke.

[wagegoth]

Everyone is different. What works for one person doesn't work for another. I've heard that nicotine is the most difficult drug to quit, and that cigarette companies have raised the amount of nicotine in cigarettes lately. They're scum.

Both my husbands smoke(d). My first husband didn't quite smoking until he had his foot amputated due to diabetes combined with smoking (both screw up your circulation).

My grandfather quit back in the sixties, when his doctor told him how bad it was for him (he'd been smoking since the thirties). Too late, he already had emphysema. He died at the age of 68; his two non-smoking sisters lived into their nineties.

In the late sixties, our family attended the funeral of my uncle, who died in his thirties of lung cancer, leaving my aunt a widow with four children to support. On the way home, my dad told my mom that he would not go through what his sister (the widow) had gone through, and if my mom didn't quit smoking he would divorce her. She quit with the help of some type of gum.

Me? I'm allergic. Cigarettes literally stink, and I had attended my uncle's funeral, and watched my grandfather's health decline to the point where he had to drag around oxygen everywhere. My husband has switched to Sherman's cigarettes, which are pure tobacco, much less likely to cause cancer, but still addictive and cause the other health problems associated with smoking.

My MIL has gone through multiple rounds of cancer, apparently related to her smoking, which she quit back in the eighties.


So this long list/rant leads to one thing: I'm very much a believer in live and let live. What you do in private, as long as it doesn't involve children, animals or unwilling participants, is your business. However, smoking costs me money. It raises health care costs, which raises my insurance rates. A smoker's illness(es) can destroy his family emotionally and financially. So, while I believe that the war on drugs is a waste of time, I also believe that if you really are going to take responsibility for your addictions, then you should really take responsibility.