World No Tobacco Day
Right!
I’m not quite sure of the significance of World No Tobacco Day. It’s like having a World No Water Day or World No Air Day – a fancy title with no real meaning.
Our Health Mob has released some blurb “in honour of the day” where they tell us that “smoking still causes over 4,00 deaths in Ireland each year“. I think they meant 4,500 but sure if you’re plucking figures out of the air then one number is as good as another. Every day there are “almost 900 hospitalisations due to smoking-related harm“. God only knows where they get these figures.
Well, actually I have a shrewd idea.
I have had the misfortune to have had to avail of our hospital amenities over the past while. Every now and then they would send some kid [probably an intern trainee nurse] to fill in a questionnaire. Age, family history, shit like that. Then they would ask if I smoked. This always led to a lot of confusion as if I said yes, they would want to know how many cigarettes I smoked a day. There was no option for pipe or cigar so this would utterly confuse them. Now when I’m asked I put on that smug smirk ex-smokers have perfected and announce that “I haven’t smoked a cigarette in over fifty years”. This is perfectly true and they put me down as a non-smoker. Everyone is happy and my soul is saved as I told the truth.
My theory is that when they are compiling their figures they look at that smoker/non-smoker checkbox and a smoker will suddenly find that his broken ankle or dose of the clap is smoking related. So what they are really saying is that every day a mob of people are admitted to hospital and of those, 900 are smokers.
As for the “lowest socio-economic group” lark I’m at a bit of a loss. What exactly is this? Economically I am possibly in that group as my pension puts me outside the super-yacht class but what about my place in society? What the fuck has that got to do with smoking? Is it only the Great Unwashed who are misbehaving and smoking more? I know ASH have this lovely theory that if you quit smoking you can immediately move out of the slums to a posh suburb and party with the Great and Noble of society not to mention buying yourself a brand new Range Rover Discovery.
Anyhows I’m not going to worry my pretty little head over this momentous day.
The anti-smokers can party all they like but they’ll have to do so without me.
I have to go and buy some tobacco.
I gave up ciggies 40 years ago, but (if I make it to 75 in a few years time), am considering starting again. That’ll piss off doctors, family, etc. – what’s not to like?
You do realise that according to all the information, you’ll never reach your 60th birthday?
If we worried about all the dire warnings, none of us would survive our twenties!
I keep reading about the benefits of coffee. Apparently it is increasingly regarded as somewhat of a wonder drug, improves concentration, liver function, memory, gut health and helps you live longer, even helps you avoid road accidents and staves off the dreaded ED so saves on viagra costs. So I suggest you accompany each cigarette with a large strong coffee and you’ll be fine.
I may be the example you need to verify that. Smoker for 60 years, 20+ a day for the last 50 of them, I also drink 10+ cups of sugared coffee per day. It really pisses the medics off when, after I’ve been completely honest about my ‘errant lifestyle’, they conduct their battery of standard tests on bodily outputs, fluids, pressures, sugars etc. and everything reports that I’m disgracefully healthy, regardless of my age.
Oddly, they’ve stopped inviting me in for any routine tests . . . . buggers up both their spreadsheets and messages apparently.
Shame , I think you’d look good in a Range Rover and then you would piss off the green lobby ,like your earlier correspondence said , what’s not to like.
About the smoking. My husband stopped smoking in about 1985. We are now in our seventies. On his medical record he was asked if he ever smoked and he foolishly answered yes. He is now classed as a “smoker”. THAT’S how they count smokers!
I don’t know where I can start on the medics.. It’s not only the brainwashed docs on smoking, it’s almost everything. I smoke a pipe maybe 3 times a month. I’m now a heavy smoker..on charts. I have something called white coat syndrome…blood pressure up when taken in the quacks office. Taken elsewhere it’s 120s/80. And for years they’ve been trying to medicate the hell out of me. And they’re pissed about it. No thanks. I’m 80 with zero signs of anything at all wrong with me. So now big pharma has lowered their recomendations for normal blood pressure and as soon as you exit the birth canal your targeted for their blood pressure meds. Good Gawd. I’m lighting up everyday now. What the hell.