nonist annex comments

Hello? Is this the Mayor’s office? Yes, Hi. I was just wondering… can you please stop kicking me in the face?

I am a smoker. At my local deli here in Brooklyn the cost of a pack of cigarettes has just hit $9. Be that as it may I’m still smoking. I’m smoking right now as I write this. And while I have absolutely no intention of joining the ranks of dumbshits who not only poison themselves knowingly on a daily basis but get all indignant over the cost New York exacts for the privilege, there is something about my state’s approach which I must confess rubs me the wrong way somehow.

I don’t know about your state, or country, but here in New York there has been a pretty massive anti-smoking campaign in effect for a while. Not only have public smoking laws been passed in conjunction with the ever increasing “sin taxes,” but there has been an extensive media campaign, comprised of both print and television ads, which effectively blankets the 5 boroughs. These ads are not only run continuously but are quite graphic, focussing on the damage smoking does. There is a man with throat cancer, a woman with multiple amputations, images of bleeding brains and tar-soaked lungs being squeezed like sponges, etc.

Here’s a tiny glimpse.

Now let me be clear. If these ads, in conjunction with the legislation and raised prices, are having the desired effect of reducing cigarette smoking among New Yorkers, I’m glad. If the general cultural outlook on smoking is changing to one of disgust and derision, making it ever less comfortable or socially acceptable for smokers to light up I’m glad about that too. You know why? Because I hate smoking. I hate that I do it and I hate that I can’t seem to stop. Not a day passes that I don’t think about cancer, nor does a day pass that I don’t feel like a pathetic weakling loser for continuing to spite it all.

Which brings me to my quibble.

There is something cruelly passive-agressive about New York’s campaign against smoking. While I am prey to nasty looks and comments on the street and brow beaten unendingly with advertisements designed to frighten me and shame me and fill me with a paralyzing anxiety, I can, none the less, stroll into my corner deli and choose from a staggering array of tobacco products to kill myself with. Sure the city will charge me the arm and leg not yet amputated, but I can buy cigarettes, and quite conveniently too, as there is a tobacco shop in every neighborhood, a deli every half-a-block, and street kiosks everywhere in between. Christ. I have a deli in the lobby of my office building, I don’t even have to cross the street to commit suicide!

So do you see why this troubles me?

While on the one hand New York does a myriad of things to make me feel crappy about myself and fill my days with a constant undercurrent of dread, it stops short of doing the one thing that might actually make someone like me, who is pathetically hooked, bow to the cultural pressure… criminalizing them.

I can tell you right now that heavy smokers, to a person, want to quit. No matter how deep down that desire is, no matter how dampened by chemical need, no matter how much we deny it. We are well aware of the health risks and effects. We are perfectly, 100% cognizant, of the fact that we will, in all likelihood, die a horrible death. No amount of advertising is going to tell us anything we don’t already know. No cost can not be rationalized somehow. We are simply helpless, spineless, wretches who can’t stop ourselves.

So… If smoking is this terrible blight upon humanity (which it undoubtedly is), if the act kills more people than all the illicit substances sold on street corners and in middle-school bathrooms, if the healthcare system is unduly burdened by all us numbskulls poisoning ourselves to death, and if elected officials are so keen to protect the health of their citizens then why are these god-damned things so easy to get?! Seriously. Can’t someone just pull the trigger already and make them illegal?

I don’t know… it just seems kind of cruel to endlessly poke and prod us stupid people. We’re already going to die horribly, smelly and broke, because of our poor choices. Isn’t that enough?

Choose a fucking side already.

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Dated: 06.08 Comments: 11 Permanent link to this post: ≡ Email this post: »

Hmm… tobacco lobby? What else could have kept those nasty photos and THESE WILL KILL YOU labels off packs of smokes in the US?

What drugs should and shouldn’t be criminalized is a tricky issue; until now it seems illegality has been restricted to those with significant behavioral effects (though make cigs impossible to get and you’ll see some widespread behavioral effects I assure you!).

BTW the commenting feature’s a bit hard to find here… but I found it. just a little unsolicited feedback.

dolla dolla bills, y’all.

too much money and power behind tobacco. letting you know the ills that will befall you washes their hands of any guilt. so they say. education programs? scare tactics to stress you out. and doesn’t a cigarette go so smoothly with anxiety. almost as good as a stiff whiskey on a cold winter night.

Yesterday I smoked the last pack of my duty-free carton. I don’t know if I can bring myself to spend 9 dollars on a pack. I guess that means I’ve quit, at least until I can find some sort of illicit hookup.

See if you can’t switch to weed. It may actually protect the lungs from cancer by causing apoptosis (spontaneous self-destruction) in precancerous lung cells. Really.

Also try EFT. Link to Youtube vids on the topic: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EFT+smoking&search;_type=

Seriously, seriously, follow along with the vidoes and do what they do. Give it an hour’s real effort, see if anything happens. In the name of Science. It don’t cost nothin’.

Oh, btw: those Truth commercials bug the shite out of me! Such priggishness. Yes, of course the tobacco companies are eeevil. Of course it’s bad for you. Etc. Etc.

But why are these earnest young noodges waxing so effing serious about an essentially self-destructive habit, and not against such strongly other-destructive habits as war-mongering and planet-raping? It’s important to be priggish about the right things.

And when they have finally outlawed the demon tabac, you just know they’ll go on to banning something else.

Probably fleshlights.

I smoked regularly for about 10 years, but was I never really felt addicted because I rarely smoked “a pack a week”, and I feel extremely fortunate. I haven’t had a smoke in almost 3 months and the last time I smoked it added up to only 3 cigarettes.

I love to smoke when I drink, espeically at a bar. Its something about a cool cocktail and a drag of a Turkish Royal that seems appealing.

I don’t know if the anti-smoking ads have subconsciously convinced me to stop, but I will occasionally have a cigarette for the pleasure. At the end of the day or during the day, I don’t need a smoke, but I feel your pain. At $9.00 a pack I would consider seriously cutting down. Try only smoking 3 cigarettes a day and stretch your will power as far as you can go.

Tell yourself that you will probably smoke in the future, but your goal is to downsize, not quit cold turkey. I found that before I knew it, I was smoke free for weeks. After being smoke free for a month, it didn’t bother me that I had a cigarette some odd evening.

For me, smoking heavily is more dangerous and self-destructive than smoking occasionally. If you convince yourself you can cut down, eventually you will stop.

Good Luck—

My sympathies,
Monique

By the way-

The people funding those ads are Health Insurance companies.

The laws being passed were pushed by Health Insurance companies, just like the Helmet laws…

I don’t think anyone gives a damn about your “health,” only the cost someone must endure to “help” you die.

I hate all “anti” campaigns because its about fear. F THAT!
I smoke when I drink and I hate when people try to lecture me.

“You really shouldn’t smoke you know.”

I usually say:
1. Wanna go the doctor and have a full health check?
2. Wanna race?

I think we should spend all that scary ad. money on waking people up to their crap ass western diets that REALLY cause all the damn cancers.
UGH!

I mean I hope you can quit but I also wish those of us that enjoy this vice with moderation could be left the hell alone.

In 50 years we’ll realize that McDonald’s and Coke killed more people than Big Tobacco. Now THAT will be super awesome to see those fear based “anti” campaigns!