talkmagic.co.uk

My driving instructor died recently of a smoking related illness.
Doctors told her she'd die if she didn't give up.
You know what she said in the car one day?

"Bloody doctors. They can't tell me how to run my life. I live for me, and when i die, I die my own life. I don't care that it's going to kill me, it's somethign I want to do and I'll damn well do it"
Maybe a lesson worth learning there

As Taiven said, it's up to her, or any smokers, what they do with their lives. Don't you think we hear enough how badly we smell and we're all going to die without it cropping up on TalkMagic?

Good points there. Smoking is a choice...And I'm sure the constant bothers and ads have pounded the facts into their heads. They understand the consequences. There is no need to keep pestering about that. Also...When you quit, you have the sudden urge to eat...A lot. The lack of nicotine cause you to become hungry all the time. Causing weight gain. A lot at that. My mother quit a couple years back and gained 20 pounds. She got all of it off by working out...Recently she picked back up on smoking...She plans on quitting again, but not until the end of July. When she will go to a doctor who will prescribe something that will not make her so hungry all the time.

i dont want to start a flame war on anything but

Oh well, they're my lungs. If I die of lung cancer that's my problem, right?

nope not at all,

so someone gets ill due to smoking they go to the hospital and have chemo in a year they will get thru up to £20,000 of medication and hospital time, so i am paying for them to recover from a illness they chose to expose them selves to,

as for 2nd hand smoke, in recentish years many people have died including Roy Castle, who never smoked in his life,

now some people are kind smokes and never smoke on the street (so not showering those behind them with ash or smoke) and dont drop there fag ends on the floor (making a mess that looks terrible)


However saying all this, its quite clear i dont like smokers, i will defend the right of anyone to smoke them selves rto death as long as they remember the others in the world, and the rest of there families


Derek

Pcwizme wrote:
so someone gets ill due to smoking they go to the hospital and have chemo in a year they will get thru up to £20,000 of medication and hospital time, so i am paying for them to recover from a illness they chose to expose them selves to,



Derek

If it wasn't for the tax we smokers pay you wouldn't have a hospital to go too...

Average cost of treating smokers a year on the NHS = £500,000

Average tax raised by smokers buying cigarettes = Several BILLION pounds.



If we're not entitled to be treated, no one is

I was forever being asked by a little group of hoodlums to buy them beer and fags and i got a little annoyed at their constant baying and whining...i got sick of it in the end so...

being quite a large gentleman at 6ft 2" and built like a brick outhouse i found it quite funny to take their collective ten and fifty pences and buy them woman's own and some ladies sanitary products instead...

ahhhh...the look on their faces, from glee to glumness in a fraction of a second...

...they don't ask me now...

i have a personal opinion that I don't want to smoke. That is my decision. I don't mind if people smoke, as that is their decision. What does b**ger me off though are when 12-13 year olds are on 50 a day, or get pi**ed every night, or get stoned e.t.c

I don't mind if people do that, but when they are that young, I think that they really are in the sh*t (pardon my french)

abraxus wrote:I was forever being asked by a little group of hoodlums to buy them beer and fags and i got a little annoyed at their constant baying and whining...i got sick of it in the end so...

being quite a large gentleman at 6ft 2" and built like a brick outhouse i found it quite funny to take their collective ten and fifty pences and buy them woman's own and some ladies sanitary products instead...

ahhhh...the look on their faces, from glee to glumness in a fraction of a second...

...they don't ask me now...

Abraxus it's people like you that make the world worth living in.. Bravo mate that's brilliant!

(and people say the standard of posts is slipping)

well, if you're going to drink when young, at least have some class about it - offer the stranger 2 pound coins or a crisp note, a percentage of the goods...be a gentleman about these things...

and besides, cheap red wine does the job far better than fizzy pop lager or a quick snort of £3 brandy...

i think as a youngster a taste of the forbidden does you good every now and again, but with kids who are intrinsically sensible and mentally healthy...ease yourself into the horror-show that is being an adult with proper resonsibilities and random emergencies...just dont go overboard..

i dont smoke, yet i'd defend the right of people who do...same as boozers, i wouldnt ban all drivers cos some get drunk and cause major accidents...

and ive always found it odd that you need a licence to own a dog, yet anyone can have a kid...

so i am paying for them to recover from a illness they chose to expose them selves to

Okay. So then, we'll ration food, so people can't get fat and get a range of illness that you have to pay for.
We'll also ration alcohol, so you don't have to pay for people who get liver damage/alcohol poisoning/obese/lots of other things.
What about people who work with asbesdos knowing it could kill them?
What about lazy people?

There are loads of examples of where people have to get medical treatment for things that they have exposed themselves to. Maybe you think they don't deserve help either, and maybe you want to live in a country where food is monitored, exercised is enforced, and any sort of risk to your health makes you unable to have medical treatment. But so long as we live in a country where we are allowed to be free to make these choices (let's face it, the Government could ban smoking...as a couple of others have pointed out. Smokers just give them too damn much tax for them to even think about it) they are going to have to provide those who through their own decisions have become ill.

However saying all this, its quite clear i dont like smokers, i will defend the right of anyone to smoke them selves rto death as long as they remember the others in the world, and the rest of there families

No one expects you to like smokers. But at least you do recognise the right of a person to choose to, as you put it, smoke themselves to death.

I do think of others when I smoke. I try my best to make sure that I'm not near anyone, or if I am (with their permission) that I don't cause them to inhale my smoke. I don't have any dependants, so my life is my own to do with what I will.

What does b**ger me off though are when 12-13 year olds are on 50 a day, or get pi**ed every night, or get stoned e.t.c

Aside of them being too young, how do they afford to do that stuff??

Abraxus, I would absolutely do that. Except I'm 5'2, and I'd get my backside kicked

I'll be honest, smoking is the least of my worries. It calms me down when stuff is bad, it gives me something simple to do when I need it, it's a drug that doesn't interfere with my medication. I know all the bad stuff, I used to be very anti-smoking myself, I've seen the black lungs, I've seen the dying people, I've seen the kiddies crying because mummy smoked 20 a day. And I still don't want to quit. Does dying 10/20 years earlier than I might have done otherwise bother me? Not hugely. I'm an intelligent, rational, and informed person, and my choice is not to quit for present (never say never).

Just to add to what Delude said about quitting and not needing ID, unfortunately that wouldn't help either. I still get IDed buying alcohol (quit drinking?), and getting in clubs (stop dancing?), and buying/getting into moveis (stop watching movies?) Maybe I just need to start looking my age!

..little victories are always worthwhile...

...lets not get too hett up over all this eh, calm down - have a fag or a drink or something...

honestly - we all do stuff that isnt always the best for us, be it mentally or physically...and lets not even mention that cows produce more methane than cars and therefore cause more pollution and damage to the environ...

...down with cows...meat might be murder, but it is also quite delicious...

I quit smoking a year and a half ago, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done (I'm now a tea total, smoke free, drug free vegetarian...I'm gonna live forever!), but if smokers want to subsidise my health care with the NHS thats up to them. As long as they don't blow smoke in my direction. I may get tempted!

abraxus wrote:...down with cows...meat might be murder, but it is also quite delicious...

Save the animals!
Become a cannibal!

More to the point, can we stick to the original topic please? Alex was concerned about the threats and abuse by those who were too young to buy stuff themselves. The question of smoking or not needs to be kept for another, quite separate debate if possible.

Save the animals!
Become a cannibal!

Haha! Nice one Kati.

Back to the original subject though. At times I feel downright ashamed to be a teen, knowing that people I know, perhaps even some I call my friends annoy and pester people to buy them things. I think that as a teen and as a person with a voice and opinion anybody who is actually buying them these things needs to stop. They are only fueling the fire. But taking their money and buying random products is quite funny. Do that instead!