I'm a non-smoker (evident from the above paragraph). I'll be honest with you (yes all five of you), I've tried it and frankly I don't find the idea of wantonly inhaling thick smoke into my lungs such a fascinating passtime. This makes me out to be somewhat of a hypocrite seeing as I wantonly pickle my kidneys with large quantities of alcohol. But we're all hypocrites.
The easiest way to go about my argument is to weigh up the pros and cons of smoking.
The most obvious argument against it is that it is unhealthy. Wow...that's a shocker. It amazes me that when smoking first came about people generally didn't believe it was bad for you. Can you believe that? Were these people sucking on exhaust pipes in the summer time or something? But anyway, the point is that smoking causes cancer and will kill you till you're dead.
"ZOMG! Smokers die young!11!LOL"
Or do they?
American author Compton McKenzie estimated that by the time he was 74 he had smoked about half a ton of tobacco. That's about the weight of a pickup truck:
He went on to live to the ripe (and possibly disease-ridden) age of 84 when he died in 1972.
So there are exceptions to the rule.
Smoking seems to cause a lot of social problems as well. People say it makes you smell and turns your fingers yellow. Is it just me, or does this sound a bit snobbish? I mean, I know I'm a non-smoker (largely because it simply doesn't appeal to me) but I can't ride my high horse when it comes to smells. After a night out of beer and donner kebabs I emit more stench in one hour than a large group of giants smoking factory chimneys and buses. And as far as having yellow fingers goes...so what? It doesn't effect anybody else and it may not look pretty but I'm sure I'm not exactly that good to look at either first thing in the morning during a hangover knowing I've got to get some uni work done because I've put it off for too long and it needs to be done within the next 0.2 seconds...
Anyway, on to the some good points.
Aside from the obvious social problems mentioned above there are some aesthetic reasons as to why it can be considered good amongst society. For one, it makes people look cool. I, for one, have never understood this ideology and this kind of refers back to the first thing I said about the 12 million clowns. In the sense that people seem to only start smoking as it's a trendy thing to do. But if people think smoking makes them look cool then who am I to judge? Nobody that's who.
To be honest I'm firmly of the opinion that if people want to smoke then it shouldn't be any sort of social disobedience to do such a thing. I have friends and family who smoke and yes, maybe they will die at a younger age. Or just maybe they will do what my grandad did: survive a stroke and still carry on smoking despite being well into his 60's now. Go grandad!
Oh, and just a sidenote. I found this game over at addictinggames.com. Meg figured it would be appropriate for this post so enjaw!
http://addictinggames.com/cigarettekiller.html
No comments:
Post a Comment