I smoke 2 packs a week, well down from my high of 2 packs/day 17 years ago. Why is smoking the only vice where there's no threshold for how many cigarettes/day will cause cancer? Every study always says "oh, everyone should quit smoking" but why is the idea of moderation not taken into account as it is for alcohol? I highly doubt my smoking 5-7 cigarettes a day is in any way as dangerous as smoking 2 packs a day. Lately I've been thinking that smoking and, later on, the anti smoking advertising was nothing but a test to see how well propaganda could work. First half of the 20th century smoking was promoted everywhere, doctors advertised for cigarette companies and smokes were given out to GIs like candy; due to this the smoking rate exploded. Come the 2nd half of the 20th century smoking became vilified by everyone and anti smoking propaganda was pushed by almost every government agency; due to this the smoking rate plunged. Compare this to the covid/woke propaganda being pushed by almost every major Western government, seems to be quite similar.
Had you ever considered smoking a pipe? I ask only because cigarettes can't sport offensive imagery. One of these days I'll find a craftsman to carve a fine meerschaum pipe with a scene of children praying in school or some other horror.
My advice: smoke on and off. Quit for eight weeks; smoke for one. That's my current regime. I love it too much. It is too embedded in my psyche and neurology to leave it for good.
As Camille Paglia says, "Tobacco is a handmaiden of the arts!"
I smoke 2 packs a week, well down from my high of 2 packs/day 17 years ago. Why is smoking the only vice where there's no threshold for how many cigarettes/day will cause cancer? Every study always says "oh, everyone should quit smoking" but why is the idea of moderation not taken into account as it is for alcohol? I highly doubt my smoking 5-7 cigarettes a day is in any way as dangerous as smoking 2 packs a day. Lately I've been thinking that smoking and, later on, the anti smoking advertising was nothing but a test to see how well propaganda could work. First half of the 20th century smoking was promoted everywhere, doctors advertised for cigarette companies and smokes were given out to GIs like candy; due to this the smoking rate exploded. Come the 2nd half of the 20th century smoking became vilified by everyone and anti smoking propaganda was pushed by almost every government agency; due to this the smoking rate plunged. Compare this to the covid/woke propaganda being pushed by almost every major Western government, seems to be quite similar.
Had you ever considered smoking a pipe? I ask only because cigarettes can't sport offensive imagery. One of these days I'll find a craftsman to carve a fine meerschaum pipe with a scene of children praying in school or some other horror.
If the prigs and puritans get any louder, I'll take up the pipe. Anything to scupper their demented vision of a smoke-free world.
(Excuse the late reply. I've just noticed this post.)
My advice: smoke on and off. Quit for eight weeks; smoke for one. That's my current regime. I love it too much. It is too embedded in my psyche and neurology to leave it for good.
As Camille Paglia says, "Tobacco is a handmaiden of the arts!"
Brilliant post.
Thanks, mate.
Does three and a half years count? Surely that bought me another decade of smoking...