For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 27, 2013

Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. We should research how some people can enjoy cigarettes safely, instead of telling everyone else to quit cigarettes. Our Puritanical mentality of self-denial blinds us to better solutions.

Don’t wast your breath people. Those in denial are not going to hear you. There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.

funny, way back when, in the 70’s, almost everyone I knew smoked in the newsroom I worked in. All my friends smoked, family smoked. It was the norm – and no one noticed ‘smelling’ bad. Because everyone smoked! Then the smoking police cracked down, and almost everyone I know (including self) gave it up. Negative pressure was too great. Can’t smoke anywhere in public or even the beaches and they are talking about banning it in cars (how they police that I will never know) but anyhow, its too expensive (up to $25 a packet now) and it is just not PC and I feel better and SMELL better and can taste food.

but heck, I admit it. I miss a cigarette with my scotch when I am out in a pub.

Let me iterate: We ex-smokers tend to get quite militant.

Actually, smoking targets more than just the lungs. It also increases the risk of cancers such cervical, bladder, nasal-sinus, and brain. Also the kidneys, mouth, throat, larynx and esophagus, stomach, liver, bladder, and pancreas. Besides cancer there is also an increased risk of ischemic heart disease, with damaging effects on blood platelets … and the endothelium (tissues lining the heart, blood vessels, lymph vessels, etc.)

Adapted from:http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/ets_health.html

I finally quit – after a dozen or more prior tries in 25 years – four years ago. Started to notice how much smoke stinks.

dear Night Gaunt. I think you misread me. I have been ‘clean’ for over 30 years. I was making an observation about times and peer pressure. I stayed in that job long after I had quit and put up with the remaining smokers for many years – eventually it was banned in the building.

get off your high horse.

Considering the effect that even one breath of second hand smoke has on me, I don’t need even one study to know it is harmful. I may be more sensitive than most, but that stuff is clearly poison.

I don’t mean to cut anyone, I would just like smokers to understand that they cannot smell themselves. I know, because I’ve been on that side of the fence. I was trying to shock a little, because that is what it takes for most people.

And please don’t take this the wrong way, but that is a typical addict’s response.

LOL! That’s what I was about to say also… don’t feed the SMOKING troll who is IN DENIAL!

I am actually shocked that anyone still smokes, given the re-run nature of this strip even Phil has been a non-smoker for years now. Yes I know this says more about my naiveté than it does about whether people still smoke or not… oh well, just quit please… for all of our sakes.

Hey hold on a minute. The folks of North Carolina have a lot invested in smoking. Before all y’all quit =smoking, you need to think about the economic implications. NC would go broke in a season if people quit smoking.

Penn and Teller later retracted what they said on that episode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit!#Criticism

Now let’s take up the evils of drinking.

Quittin’s easy

Back to the cost, I just googled what a pack of cigarettes costs in Canada. Between $10-$13. That would be by today’s standards not from when this is written but I find it hard to believe someone would pay that for a habit that is slowly killing them and harming their loved ones who must breathe in the second hand smoke. If someone smokes two packs a day that’s between 20-26 bucks a day which is over $100 a week. Think of what you could do with all that money if you quit. I knew a woman who quit and put the money aside she’d have spent on cigarettes and at the end of the year took a very nice vacation. You could even buy a new car for that kind of money.

NC tobacco farmers won’t go broke. American cigarettes are thought to be the best around the world, they have worked their magic to get the Chinese hooked. GB did it once and now we are doing it. Sad, really.

I flirted with smoking as a teen. I smoked about 2 years and then got a bad cold/flu and did not smoke for a week. I stopped smoking then, 35 years ago. I still want one with my morning coffee. I now have trouble breathing and it seems to be getting worse. Making a law against it does not work, but proper education can(not scare tactics, kids see right through them).

Actually, there are plenty of diatribes against casual sex and alcohol drinking. Just look around and you’ll see it.Not that that is at all relevant to discussions about smoking. But if you open your eyes and ears, you’ll see plenty of admonitions against casual (especially outside of marriage) sex and drinking of alcohol.

Whoot Owls, or Screech Owls..\\//_

Because neither alcohol nor casual sex harms the folks around you, just by being nearby as smoking does.

If this weren’t 29 years old, Phil would be using an e-cigarette, probably the flavored (flavoured for our Canadian friends) kind.

Dead man walking.

my brother just died from it

Sorry but if your lungs sound like a barn full of owls, you are far from perfectly fine.

Healthy is as healthy does, you can keep smoking if you want but it will definitely lead to problems in the future

My ex-daughter-in-law smokes to calm her nerves and stay thin. She’ll just die serene and skinny in about 20 years or so.

I had a hospital roommate, elderly, wrinkly, frail, but who pleaded endlessly with her doctor for just one cigarette (predictably, the answer was always no) so she snuck out of the room in the middle of the night after night to cadge a smoke from one of the janitors and would come back in reeking. Her daughter and toddler grandson visited. I was stunned when I found out the grandma wasn’t 79, she was 49! Smoking ages a body badly.

The hyperbole here is astounding from both sides. And, much of the talk and vehemence and venom from some of you is truly shocking and deeply disturbing. I am shocked at how there is such a tremendous lack of being kind and considerate of others here. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Yes, I am a pipe smoker…. Do I enjoy smoking pipe tobacco? Yes, Do I wish I didn’t smoke? Yes. Do I attempt to quit? Yes. Do I smoke my pipe in a respectful fashion? Yes (I smoke only in my backyard or in my truck.) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Do I respect your rights as a non-smoker? Yes. Do I respect your right as a non-smoker or a smoker to be obnoxious and belligerent in your statements (such as the repetitive “You stink! You stink! You stink!” statements for instance)? No.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Final note, please keep in mind the historical context here. Back in the early 1980s when this comic story arc was new, the world was a vastly different place. Many, many people smoked. To be so extreme with your vehemence towards Phil is silly when you view the comic in its historical, 1980s context.

stop now or die of cancer

“Yet there are no diatribes against casual sex like there are with tobacco.”

Nope. Nothing to be gained by demonizing those things – you’d think Prohibition would have taught the bluenoses something, but evidently bluenoses have some sort of learning disabiity. They never seem to learn.

It has nothing to do with any practical concern for people’s health or any other positive factor. It’s population control for some undisclosed purpose, or they wouldn’t have to lie about it. They most definitely are lying about it, so there is some sort of agenda, which we can only guess about. I posted a couple of guesses upthread, which might or might not have something to do with it. The only certainty is that there is some purpose, but we aren’t to know what it is.

Whatever it is, it’s a long term project.

Phil, just go with ‘fine’, keep playing, illigitimi non carborundum …

check the policies, make sure your name is spelled correctly on the beneficiary line. He’s a gonner.

About 1960s ;;;;;;;the first serious studies about smoking vs health came out. Here’s how the tobacco companies responded:OLD GOLD: We’re tobacco men, not medicine men.CAMELS: 70% of doctors prefer Camels.(Did this insunuiate that only 30% preferred women?)

It’s MY job to avoid smoke?

How am I to avoid the smokers’ gauntlet in front of almost every store I go to? Why can’t smokers at least extinguish butts, instead of just tossing them right before they walk inside……..and exhale inside? Just walking through a parking lot means running into clouds of poison. Standing in line to enter the Guitar Center grand opening……I’m just supposed to miss the deals?

NO. It is time to put an end to this bull……

I’m sorry to get irate, but I’m sick and tired of these specious arguments from people in denial.

I’m sure your breath stinks also. I worked with a woman who smoked and her breath could knock you over. My 5th grade teacher smoked and her breath matched her personality.

I don’t smoke – never have – but smokers distress me less than do cigarette nazis. Fortunately they are mostly in blue states, so I never have to be around them.

“No, you cannot stand in the open doorway and smoke.”

“No, you cannot get in the car right after putting one out.”

“No, It doesn’t matter how many windows you open, you cannot smoke in here.”

“It doesn’t matter that you put it out, I cannot come inside with you.”

These are the kind of statements that get me branded a “nazi”. But they are NOT CHOICES. I am truly sorry that I HAVE to be this way. But I am not going to waste a lot of time trying to make people understand. You see the results, just above.