Even though I have been a second hand smoker all my life, and I quite enjoy the smell of good tobacco, I am completely against smoking, whether it's cigarettes, cigars, pipes, or sheesha. Maybe I feel so strongly because I have my own personal experience with smokers, but I think, despite my personal experiences, there is a global agreement that smoking is not the best habit to pick up.
My father was a heavy smoker, he smoked forty to fifty packs a week, which sums up to 800 to 1000 cigarettes. He smoked the red Marlboros, known to have higher nicotine than the rest of the types of cigarettes, and he smoked for more than 30 years of his life. He died. Smoking killed him. I'm saying this but that's not accurate, it was his life style that killed him. He ate breakfast in the morning and had dinner late at night. He had a stressful job; a structural engineer, then the head of the planning and execution departments, positions that had him always moving between sites all over the country. He spent all his mornings smoking and drinking coffee. He hardly slept well and he rarely went on vacations. He did not have time for sports even though he played tennis, squash, and soccer. So maybe I shouldn't blame smoking after all? Except I do!
Firstly, smoking increases the blood pressure which does not really help with the stress levels. Secondly, smoking ruins the lungs which leaves the smoker out of breath and thus the idea of sports becomes far fetched. Thirdly, smoking is destructive and the smokers are fully aware of that, but it is their twisted idea of banging their head against the wall, or maybe slowly committing suicide. Finally, smoking ruins the appetite making it difficult for a smoker to eat healthily especially with the busy schedule most smokers claim to have, adding more to their health and life style issues. As for women smokers, I think it's shameful for a woman who goes through pregnancy, labor, raising babies, extreme mood swings and emotional roller coasters to think that smoking helps with the stress. If women were not built to handle the stress, then who was?!
Do I hear freedom, rights, personal space? Every smoker hurts the people around them with every puff. My brother and I developed respiratory issues as a result of my father's smoking, as did my mother, even though he rarely smoked at home, and at some point was banned completely from smoking in the house (I have a very brave mother). It isn’t just the people the smoker lives with and cares about, even pedestrians are hurt from the smoke since they are exposed to multiple smokers throughout the day, every day. So you'll go smoke in the desert away from everyone? Smoking still expels carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere, adding to the global warming issues, hurting the earth and everything on it. Just in case you're thinking, dear smoker, that you're just one person, how bad could it be? I will first ask you doesn't that sound eerily like what people said about their votes during elections and we all responded that EVERY VOTE COUNTS? With just over 15 BILLION cigarettes smoked daily, how badly do your cigarettes, dear smoker, are hurting the world?
As for the guys, who I refuse to call men, who smoke because it makes them look, or feel, more manly, and the girls who smoke because it makes them look or feel sexier, probably imagining themselves as femme fatales who can melt a man's heart with a puff of smoke and a lipstick stained cigarette, I have one word to say to you: LMAO!!!!! seriously, get a life!
Dear smoker, with every puff of smoke you:
- hurt yourself
- hurt the people you love
- hurt the people you don't even know
- hurt the earth
- possibly look like a total idiot (ok not everyone)
So think twice before you light that, every puff counts.
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