Would you love something that slowly kills you, leaving an awful taste in your mouth and a horrible stench in the air? I wouldn’t think so, but many people do. In fact, more than half the people on this planet do. Why? To be 'cool'? To feel more sophisticated, older? I really don't see how polluting your lungs with mind-bogging amounts of smoke makes you more mature. Give me a break.
Not only does it yellow your hands and teeth, it destroys your physical health as well. You can acquire more diseases from cigarettes than from anything else in the world, believe it or not. Smoking causes totally unnecessary disabilities, sicknesses and deaths. Cancers, heart disorders, breathing problems, birth defects… If you can name it, you can probably blame it on smoking. It is, basically, our most urgent health problem. Lots of people who die from things like cancer and lung disease suffer years and years again, so much that death is actually a relief. My mother, being a nurse and working with the terminally ill, sees a lot of these kinds of cases. One day last fall she was tending to a man diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He was in so much pain that he had to be injected with high doses of morphine every four hours, and, as you can guess, he was pretty stoned. He felt so painless; in fact, that he didn’t even feel the cigarette butt he was holding until it had caused second-degree burns on his fingers. This man smoked when he was conscious, and two weeks later he died holding a cigarette. Doesn’t that seem kind of redundant?
One of the worst parts about this nauseating habit is that it harms other people than the smoker. Most non-smokers find cigarettes revolting. And why shouldn’t they? Besides creating a horribly offensive odor, second hand smoke hurts their lungs too. Smoking also affects poor unborn babies, who have no say in the matter and sometimes are born with hideous defects and other problems.
Another sufferer of cigarette smoke is the environment. Most people throw their cigarette butts anywhere available, making beautiful scenery look ugly and unnatural. Cigarettes also cause forest fires that take away the homes of many helpless animals. It also causes air pollution, which causes acid rain, which kills all sorts of plant life that feeds all sorts of little birds and other cute animals ... O.K., maybe I'm exaggerating, but every little bit helps, right?
One of smoking’s most horrible characteristics is its addictiveness. Smoking turns normal people into sad creatures who are forever worrying about running out of cigarettes. Yeah, they think they have it under control, but they're just kidding themselves. The cigarettes actually control them, and they in turn make smoking a part of their lives. I 'm not kidding. The way they move their fingers when they speak, so much so that their gestures actually evolve around smoking. (My own mother actually tried to light up her fork and smoke it at the dinner table with us one day!!) You often can sense a strange sort of religiousness around devout smokers as they puff away on their cigarettes. And when these people are deprived of smokes, they actually feel incomplete or even crippled. They find life most unbearable.
Quitting though, is really worthwhile. The sooner you quit, the better. The damage you have done to yourself will start to reverse itself. You can escape bad health and premature death. (And the chance of lighting your house on fire and killing the entire family). If you quit, you'll have more money to spend on more import ant things. Why not put aside all the money you would have spent on cigarettes in a year and take a nice, long trip to Las Vegas? There are even withdrawal plans around that can help you stop…
The only people who benefit from smoking are the money hungry businessmen who make big bucks in the tobacco industry. So, there is no so thing as a healthy smoke (or pipe or cigar or whatever). And remember, the only safe cigarette is an unlit one.
Not only does it yellow your hands and teeth, it destroys your physical health as well. You can acquire more diseases from cigarettes than from anything else in the world, believe it or not. Smoking causes totally unnecessary disabilities, sicknesses and deaths. Cancers, heart disorders, breathing problems, birth defects… If you can name it, you can probably blame it on smoking. It is, basically, our most urgent health problem. Lots of people who die from things like cancer and lung disease suffer years and years again, so much that death is actually a relief. My mother, being a nurse and working with the terminally ill, sees a lot of these kinds of cases. One day last fall she was tending to a man diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He was in so much pain that he had to be injected with high doses of morphine every four hours, and, as you can guess, he was pretty stoned. He felt so painless; in fact, that he didn’t even feel the cigarette butt he was holding until it had caused second-degree burns on his fingers. This man smoked when he was conscious, and two weeks later he died holding a cigarette. Doesn’t that seem kind of redundant?
One of the worst parts about this nauseating habit is that it harms other people than the smoker. Most non-smokers find cigarettes revolting. And why shouldn’t they? Besides creating a horribly offensive odor, second hand smoke hurts their lungs too. Smoking also affects poor unborn babies, who have no say in the matter and sometimes are born with hideous defects and other problems.
Another sufferer of cigarette smoke is the environment. Most people throw their cigarette butts anywhere available, making beautiful scenery look ugly and unnatural. Cigarettes also cause forest fires that take away the homes of many helpless animals. It also causes air pollution, which causes acid rain, which kills all sorts of plant life that feeds all sorts of little birds and other cute animals ... O.K., maybe I'm exaggerating, but every little bit helps, right?
One of smoking’s most horrible characteristics is its addictiveness. Smoking turns normal people into sad creatures who are forever worrying about running out of cigarettes. Yeah, they think they have it under control, but they're just kidding themselves. The cigarettes actually control them, and they in turn make smoking a part of their lives. I 'm not kidding. The way they move their fingers when they speak, so much so that their gestures actually evolve around smoking. (My own mother actually tried to light up her fork and smoke it at the dinner table with us one day!!) You often can sense a strange sort of religiousness around devout smokers as they puff away on their cigarettes. And when these people are deprived of smokes, they actually feel incomplete or even crippled. They find life most unbearable.
Quitting though, is really worthwhile. The sooner you quit, the better. The damage you have done to yourself will start to reverse itself. You can escape bad health and premature death. (And the chance of lighting your house on fire and killing the entire family). If you quit, you'll have more money to spend on more import ant things. Why not put aside all the money you would have spent on cigarettes in a year and take a nice, long trip to Las Vegas? There are even withdrawal plans around that can help you stop…
The only people who benefit from smoking are the money hungry businessmen who make big bucks in the tobacco industry. So, there is no so thing as a healthy smoke (or pipe or cigar or whatever). And remember, the only safe cigarette is an unlit one.
