...not just the smoker. My earliest recollection of smoking becoming a lifestyle issue is at the age of 11. Up until that point I'd just put up with my mother and father smoking at least 20 a day each, in the house, car, garden, my bedroom, in fact everywhere.
But at the age of 11 I had to make my first voluntary health choice. The gang of girls I went around with met one lunchtime at school, and one had stolen a pack of her fathers cigarettes. I can still visualise them even now, a black plastic cylinder with John Player cigarettes in it. She hadn't taken one or two, she'd nicked the entire pack.
Then the declaration of the gang leader, "if you don't smoke you can't be in our gang". So after sharing them around everyone lit up, I took one puff and decided to find new friends. To this day, and rapidly approaching 41, I haven't touched another cigarette.
However I've certainly passively smoked plenty. So as you've probably now guessed, smoking is the topic of todays slug blog.
Smoking kills. Every year, around 114,000 smokers in the UK alone die as a result of smoking. Bizarrely tobacco is the only legally available consumer product which kills people when it is used entirely as intended, and about 50% of all regular cigarette smokers will eventually be killed by their habit.
It's interesting that despite all of the warnings on tobacco product packaging, the only people that seem to take notice are the non-smokers. 'Smoking kills'. 'Smoking may harm your unborn baby', etc etc.
How about the tv adverts where they squeeze thick fat deposits out of the veins of a smoker, the only people that cringe are again the non-smokers.
Now I'm sure that there will be a hue and cry from all you smokers out there, but you can't smoke and follow a healthy lifestyle, the two aren't mutually compatible.
The UK government earned £8,093 million in revenue from tobacco duty excluding VAT in the financial year 2003-04. The Government also currently spends around £30m on anti-smoking education campaigns. A further £41m is spent on measures to help people stop smoking. Seems to me a case of poacher masquerading as gamekeeper.
In case anyone is wondering why I'm really really anti-smoking, the reason is my mother has recently had her leg amputated because smoking had blocked the arteries so badly the leg died.
She never cared about the consequences of smoking, even when her father died of lung cancer due to smoking, and she continued to smoke while her smoker husband was dying of cancer too.
If you can't stop smoking just for yourself, then why not consider the others around you who will be affected by it. The doctors and nurses who have to pick up the medical pieces, the health service who has to pick up the bill, the families whose lives get torn apart when a parent dies leaving young children alone and unguided, the people whose lives are affected by having to look after severely disabled people who brought it all on themselves with their own selfishness smoking.
Giving up is not easy, smoking is a drug, and drugs taking time to get free of. But there are a lot of organisations all over the world that will help and support smokers to kick the habit.
Go to
www.ash.org.uk
They list international & european support groups/websites, there are also many more, a few are listed below:
http://www.ash.org/ - US support
http://www.ashaust.org.au - Australia support
http://www.quit.org.uk/ - Independent UK charity
http://www.quitnet.com - US support
http://www.tobaccofree.org/quitting.html - US support
http://www.roycastle.org - Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
(Please note that we can't vouch for any of the anti-smoking/smoking support groups listed on this blog)
Finally, if you smoke and have young children think what you're doing to their lungs by subjecting them to passive smoking. If you have grandchildren think how nice it would be to see them grow up. If you have two legs, think how nice it would be to keep them.
Please stop.
