Smoking <3
Let me just begin by saying that this is in no way intended to be taken as an official critique on anything. These ideas are simply my own, personalized and self-centered. I give little thought to grammar and intend only to get my point across. Well, I guess with that point made I can move along to what’s on my mind at the moment: smoking. Smoking is becoming more and more taboo everyday because of the increasing cancer rate of smokers and the assholes that make those stupid Truth commercials. I cringe every time one of those idiots come on T.V., which I watch very little of. I think its stupid how shock value is seen as the best weapon to use against smoking. We’ve all been in the same health class, watched the same video of some 60 year old woman who looks like she’s 80 with a hole in her throat and sounds like whoopee cushion trying to talk. Sure we find it disturbing, who doesn’t? For the rest of the day we walked around saying we’ll never smoke because of the repulsive image we saw that day. A day later we’re over it. Smokers go back to smoking and non-smokers like me at the time started considering it again. Shock value, to me anyway, seems like the most ineffective method of persuasion on anything. Is this simply human nature? No one knows; no one cares. I don’t think too many people go to a movie and see someone get in a car crash and say that they’re never going to drive again. Smoking is an ancient past time. Everyone did it back then (mostly because Truth didn’t exist 2000 years ago) and no one got any crap for it. It was honorable; it was traditional; it was . . . cool. Granted that back then they weren’t smoking the same thing we are now back then, but at the same time the stuff they were smoking then would almost without a doubt be considered illegal today. But if anti-smokers want to argue against that, that’s fine with me because inevitably they’ll bring up the fact that you’ll get cancer. Well, you know what? Everything causes cancer. I don’t think a year goes by without ten new, completely random objects going onto the carcinogenic agent list. The bottom line is that you just can’t win. Smoking has become so taboo that people like me now run the risk of losing friends. Smoking causes second hand smoke and releases hazardous chemicals in the air. Well, guess what! So do cars. So do bathroom cleaning agents. So does everything for all we know. I don’t see why people who are so worried about second hand smoke don’t just lock themselves in a closet and just don’t come out. The same goes for the ones who say that smoking makes your teeth turn yellow, makes your clothes smell bad, etc. Again, so does eating garlic and drinking ice tea. But again, smoking is apparently the exception and is wrong to no end. The point is, the detrimental effects of smoking are no more hazardous to my health than is walking down a crowded street, breathing in city air while eating smelly food and drinking dark beverages. Maybe I should stay away from those people.