On Smoking.

Much has been written about smoking. Smokers (and I know many and count them as friends) cite how it helps them to relax, keep their weight down, et cetera. Me? I’m a lifelong non-smoker. Hate it. I’m allergic to cigarette smoke. Can’t stand it. Given that a number of people I care a lot about are smokers, I’d like to explain a couple of things about smoking and my outlook on the practice.

Kissing someone who smokes is like licking a dirty ashtray.
Yup. And it really doesn’t matter if you take one puff or smoke an entire pack. When you draw the smoke into your lungs, it’s gonna make your breath smell bad. REALLY bad. And no amount of tooth-brushing or mouthwash is going to change that. Unless you decide to suck the mouthwash into your lungs.

Smoking makes you reek.

This is a good one. Some kind of cognitive dissonance gives smokers the ability to completely overlook how smoke gets into to your clothes, your hair, and the pores of your skin. Bathing helps. Some. Washing your clothes helps. But all it takes is to light one up, and you’re back to square one. If you REALLY want to get rid of the external stench of smoking on your person, hie thee to a sauna. That’s the only think I know that will leech the stuff out of your pores.

If smoking is bad for electronics, what does it do to your body?
The only guy I’ve ever known in the video editing business that smoked had constant problems with his gear. Why? Because the carbon particles that are a part of cigarette smoke get sucked into electronics gear and – over a period of time – stick to the circuit boards and – eventually – short them out. In order to de-louse electronics, you have to put them into ionizing chambers and then clean them. Carefully. How do you do that with a pair of lungs?

Why do so many health care professionals smoke?
Wow. That’s a tough one. You’d think that the very people that know the most about the effects of cigarette smoke would be the ones least likely to smoke. But smoke they do. I office next door to a hospice, for cryin’ out loud. The parking lot looks like an ashtray. Sheesh.

Smoking is addictive. And mind-altering.
Nobody seriously debates the fact that nicotene is a drug, nor that a cigarette is basically a drug delivery system. Overlooked, however is the tragic combination of the addictive effect of nicotene, coupled with the very human tendency and ability to rationalize. The result is someone who can successfully ignore logic, reasoning, scientific/medical evidence, and any other argument, in order to keep smoking at any cost.

Smoking is disgusting, dangerous, expensive, and stupid. Now if I could just get the people that I love to stop smoking long enough to listen…