Time to quit?
The pogrom against tobacco started in earnest around twenty years ago.
They said at the outset that they wanted to help smokers to quit and frequently cited the figure of 70% who expressed a desire to do so. Not that I ever really believed that figure as it's a figure of desire and not a figure of intent, and I suspect there were probably a few non-smokers in there to boost the figures a bit.
Fair enough. If someone really wants to quit and feels the need for help then I have no problem with that.
Now the rates have been falling steadily but [and this is just a theory] they seem to have leveled off somewhat. All the countries who are so proud of their pogroms seem to have flattened out at around 20%. Ireland stands at 24% [World Bank figures], the UK at 22% the United States at 21% Canada at 20% and Australia at 18%. Could they have reached bedrock?
There is a section of society that has no wish to quit. People enjoy their smoke, or enjoy the benefits and many [myself included] have no desire to quit whatsoever. There are also a few who may secretly desire to quit but who have become stubborn in the face of all the attempts to force them. It would not surprise me in the least if these make up the vast bulk of the stubborn bedrock.
So the mission to help people off tobacco is complete. If the pogrom continues it has become a mission to force people off tobacco. I think everyone will agree that there is no harm in organisations who wish to help people quit smoking, or drinking, or gambling, or line-dancing or anything else for that matter, but when it comes to a stage of forcing people then that is an entirely different matter. What was a cute Labrador guide-dog has become a vicious Rottweiller.
It won't stop them, of course. They will continue to attack the 20% claiming they are helping, but knowing damn well that they won't succeed. After all, that 20% won't shift so they are guaranteed their incomes, and the more the 20% resist, the more money they will demand for additional punitive measures.
You didn't think it was about health, did you?
As Dick Puddlecote reminds us regularly, this was never about health, nor was it ever about helping people. The only helping was tobacco control helping themselves to the contents of our pockets.
The problem is that the gubmint makes a fortune and the Antis make handsome salaries so neither is likely to stop any time soon. Why can't they pick on someone else? Golfers? Rock climbers?
I quit when they hit £1 a packet. I was getting through 60-80 a day. The decision was based purely on literally burning good moeny.
God alone knows how people on benefits afford fags these days – or the price of a pint down the pub come to that.
Working, paying taxes? Clearly I'm doing something wrong…
My old Dad used to say, "Giving up smoking is easy. I do it every night".
Yes, they always say that 70% want to quit. It's just a figure they've plucked out of the air, like the 'recommended units of alcohol' was.
Whatever the figure is, it would be more accurate to say that x% don't so much want to quit smoking, but they do want to quit being stigmatised, marginalised, treated like pariahs and taxed to oblivion. Not surprising, really. I bet that in the 1930s a lot of Jewish people would have liked to quit being a Jew. Nothing to do with being Jewish, but all to do with wanting to find a way of escaping their persecutors.
They love to quote that figure, don't they!
How many of those are "I would do anything to give the evil things up" and how many are "seeing as you asked, I suppose in an ideal world I would give 'em up"? I imagine most people would fall into the latter as it's the polite thing to say when asked. Out of that 70%, how many have made serious attempts to quit?
No, I didn't and don't think its about health The antismoking/antismoker crusade is about power and plunder. When they are done with smoking they will go back to seeking prohibition of alcohol. After all this crusade is based in a Puritan view of morality (which also drives the quest for profit). Smoking bnas are about social control. The health risks of smoking are exaggerated to fit the antismoker ideology.
Should have read bans above… Either way smoking bans need to be repelaed and the antismokers' lies exposed.
I have a fairly good idea of when my wife is going to quit – about seven days before her funeral. At the current rate of progression of her emphysema, we suspect that to be later this year, perhaps next.
The advantage of her breathing problems is that the doesn't have enough energy to walk to the rear of the shops that stock her favorite cheap gut-rot. As a result she's been sober more often over the last couple of months. Every cloud….
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1045488/this-112-year-old-womans-secret-to-long-life-is-chain-smoking/
Her mother died at 79 of a heart attack having smoked 40 a day for most of her life; her father made it to 85 with similar history.
I guess she's just relatively unlucky.
From all I can gather, it's ultimately down to a throw of the dice.
The inference here is that your wife smoked therefore it was the smoke that caused her COPD, and 'everyone knows' that eh mick? A much better correlation is water – everyone drinks water and everyone with emphysema drinks water (in tea, coffee etc.) therefore the water must have caused it – No? Maybe those ginger nuts she loved to eat every other day were the real culprits, or …
Its all rubbish of course – brainwashing is a marvelously thing to get people to believe the most absurd suggestion – if it is done properly. You haven't been brainwashed into believing ginger nuts were the cause – so it isn't – it's an absurd suggestion.
How's about this;
In US. between 1979 and 2007 an almost a three-fold increase in COPD was recorded, while smoking (and SHS) halved. How does a reduction in the 'cause' result in an increase in incidence?
Janice Leung and Don Sin from the University of British Columbia, Canada; “Despite there being an estimated 120 million NEVER smokers with COPD worldwide, these patients have been systematically excluded from drug trials, leading to a complete lack of knowledge about how they should be treated.”
Don't fall for the claim that you smoked, you got emphysema, therefore smoking caused it. This is a manufactured fallacy. ASK What causes NON smoker emphysema (ginger nuts?) and why would smokers not get it from the same causes? How many NON smokers are suffering with COPD today who would not be, IF money had been spent on research instead of anti-smoker propaganda – brainwashing? Most non-smokers think that the anti-smoker agenda ONLY affects smokers – another fallacy.
Actually I'm not too bothered about whether the smoking caused the problem or not. I can, however, observe that her ability to absorb oxygen is barely sufficient to sustain life. The lightest exercise (walking from bed to bathroom) leaves her breathless, and whenever she's admitted to hospital, the first thing they do is break out an oxygen bottle.
A cigarette causes her to need to use an inhaler, which she objects to. The resultant coughing fit is obviously painful, and it can take her longer to recover composure than the cigarette took to smoke. What if the inhaler doesn't work, or she's forgotten to pick it? I've had to help her to find it and then use it many times, especially when she's too drunk to hold it the right way up.
Perhaps she'll live long enough to draw her pension, but that means keeping her alive until August, Seems unduly optimistic at the moment.