Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 09, 2014

Started at 15Stopped at 15

Had a lot of friends who smoked. Tried it for one week. Figured this is an acquired habit you have to work way too hard to acquire. Bought comics books instead for the next 40+ years. Much better investment.

Not starting is the smartest move.

Started at 13, quit permanently at 22. Haven’t touched one or felt like having one for 30 years.

Both of my parents died from smoking related diseases. I never touched it.

Americans are slowly wising up. Cigarette smokers are now only 18% of the U.S. population. The practice is in decline in Europe also. But don’t worry about the tobacco farmers! The tobacco companies have been very successful in promoting cigarettes in the rest of the world. If cigarettes were banned utterly in the United States tomorrow, it would be a problem but not a fatal one for the tobacco companies. As long as they can produce the plants, and process the leaves here, they can make and sell the cigarettes abroad. They would survive. Not that there is any chance that cigarettes are going to be banned. And that 18% will be difficult to reduce. Too many young people going into low-wage work environments still find that they are looked upon as elitist, or wimpy, if they don’t smoke like those around them.

I have to confess that when I see someone smoking, especially a young person, it seems to me like someone who is advertizing, “I’m not very bright.” That is unkind of me, and unfair, I know.

One puff of one of mom’s unattended lit cigarettes when I was six convinced me to never smoke. Probably helped that at the time, she smoked Pall Mall unfiltered.

Start: A week after graduation, 1962.Pack-a-day until 1987; flu so bad I couldn’t stand but one-a-day, then told myself “Let’s just try zero for a bit” and snuck out from under.Pipe hadn’t helped, having a friend keep the pack just lost friends, best decision I ever made, to just let go.Mom had several brands open in a bowl always, Dad did Winstons til he switched to plain Luckys; he almost made it to 80 before it got him.When you’re “17 and bulletproof” it’s just not real yet.

Loosies

My father smoked, and I never wanted any part of anything he did . ..I’m sure my asthma and my brother’s respiratory problems have nothing to do with all the second-hand smoke we breathed.

MiHorn, I was going to share a very similar story. Never smoked anything, grew up in a house with smoke, now sitting in my house trying to manage my asthma rather than being outside leading my life. I think my mom would have rather died than consciously do anything that would have caused us harm, but she’s an addict.

I’ll add my three cents worth. I didn’t start til “late”, in my early 20’s. Enjoyed it for 30 years or so. Quit 8 years ago. Haven’t wanted one since. Oddly, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other to be around smokers. Wife started at 9, and also smoked for many years. Quit about 20 years ago, but it still took its toll. She joked that she quit because they were up to 75 cents a pack! I’ve been very fortunate. Maybe starting late, after my “formative years” had a hand in avoiding serious problems. Knock on wood….So I don’t condemn, just commiserate. Quit if you can! Now to work on my daughter’s habit….

We stopped smoking so they put nicotine in pesticides – sorry – I’ll take Pollination over Plantations any day

The trend will reverse, now they can get them hooked on candy flavored e cigs.

I hope e cigs don’t catch on with the cool kids…

errr….. In the thirties and forties cigarettes were known as coffin nails.

My late Mother smoked for many yrs including the time of her pregnancy with both me & my Brother. For several yrs I suffered bronchial asthma which finally disappeared when she refrained from smoking around the family. Young people need to wake up & not give in to peer pressure & not to take up a very expensive & filthy habit.

If everyone quit smoking it would be bad for Social Security.

Most of the “Cool Kids” of my generation are dead now…

That’s right kids, take it from Mr. Butts the only way to save social Security is for you to die off before you retire, so light up now.

I tried smoking when about a Junior in High School. Dad smoked. One day he picked up an old white t-shirt, took a drag and exhaled thru the White cloth; it left a dark gooey spot on the shirt. He said, "That’s what gets in your lungs if you intend to smoke. I found out that smoking a pipe doesn’t leave that big spot, it was smoother and given the right tobacco, rather aromatic. I quit smoking cigarettes when they became $5 a carton.

Why was this printed in a kids section of the paper? (The Charlotte Observer)

Started in basic training in the early ‘70s because smokers got to take breaks. Quit when my youngest was born in the mid-80s. Started again during Desert Storm. Had a medium-serious cerebellar hemorrhagic stroke 10 years ago last week; spent weeks in the hospital and months in PT/OT. The stroke turned off a switch in my brain — haven’t wanted to smoke and haven’t missed it a bit since that day. Had a CT scan last month that showed very mild emphysema (non-symptomatic) and a touch of bronchiectasis, but no tumors. Odd to think that the stroke may have saved my life.

Yes, the consistent message, for decades, from parents, teachers, media, police, and doctors have had a huge impact on the number of smokers. If we do the same with other harmful and completely stupid activities, all that do no good except for a handful of people (with moneymakers behind them blowing those way, way out of proportion), we can get the responsible, productive, useful society we need. Working on a better world, not ducking responsibility and hoping it’ll get better all by itself.

I quit after 4 years of smoking 36 years ago. I got real sick with flu, I figured if I couldn’t smoke for a week, it was time to quit. In the morning with my coffee, I still reach for one. Don’t start, the smell is nasty.

will not deny that smoking can be a contributor to disease. But still believe that the crap the corporations of the world throw into the air we breath is a larger and more dangerous threat to health.

Started when I was 14, quit when I was 42 (1996). Was smoking over 4 1/2 packs a day when I quit. Haven’t touched one since. Stupidest thing I ever did was to start, smartest thing I ever did was to quit. Would have been smarter not to start in the first place.

Started at 11 years old. Had my last one at 26, didn’t say I quit until many, many long years later. The temptation was so strong I was afraid to say “I quit” because that would jinx it.

I view cigarette smokers (actually, tobacco users in general) and those who get tattoos – especially the tattoos that are extensive and displayed prominently – as belonging to the same sub-class of society: These are people who obviously have problems with long-term planning.`When people of your parent’s or grandparent’s generation tell you they “didn’t know” that smoking was harmful what they are doing is lying – to you and probably to themselves. There has been very compelling statistical evidence dating as far back as the 1920’s showing significantly elevated levels of cancers, respiratory, and heart conditions among smokers as compared to non-smokers. If you want proof that people at least strongly suspected that cigarettes were harmful, consider that during World War II a very common nickname for cigarettes was “coffin nails”.

started at 17 – $.49 a packquit at 28 – $10 a carton. I swore I would never pay a dollar for a pack of smokes and when they hit a buck a pack in a carton I quit.

And remember kids, when John Boehner hands out tobacco lobbyists’ checks on the House floor, IT’S OKAY IF A REPUBLICAN DOES IT.

After smoking 20+ years, my mom quit when I was about ten. A couple years of agony for her, weight gain, and all that. That was enough to get me to never try the stuff.

20+ years later, lung cancer killed her anyway.

I have long wondered what it would be like if the terbaccy industry developed cures for all the medical problems their product produces, how their sales would soar..Had it not cost my father his larynx, he would have continued his three pack a day consumption for many years to come rather than the few it left him during which he went cold-turkey. I wish my children could have known him better, longer.

In the 1960’s, Dad was so adamantly against smoking, I thought there must be something to it and tried it a few times. Lucky that my friends generally didn’t smoke—my ill little sis wasn’t so lucky. Dad is now going on 103, btw.

started at 12 (there was a machine in the basement of our apartment) and both mom and dad smoked.

I quit at 29 (2.5 pack a day) right after finishing up my graduate classes. I’m about to turn 60 and am sooooooooo glad I did quit!

wish I’d never wasted so many of my growing up years hooked on tobacco.

I remember doing a “coffin nail” poster when I was in jr high – probably 1962..I had two questions I always wanted the Congressional “heroes” to ask the tobacco execs after they swore under oath that cigarettes were safe:Do you smoke?At what age will you recommend to your children that they start smoking?It never happened.

Don’t you know that tobacco is no longer the cool thing. Everyone whose everyone smokes marijuanna now.

I used to smoke every deer hunting season and stopped at the end. Then, the year I started college, I didn’t stop. I was 19 (legal drinking age at the time) and it seemed natural to smoke in a bar. I was working food service and smokers got extra breaks, too. Lastly, I was dating a smoker who became my wife. This was just about the time a pack crossed over $1. Finally, about four years after starting regular smoking, we both quit when we became parents. That’s coming up on thirty years ago now. I still get the occasional mild craving.

Maybe, shugar is some chemical sweetener that hasn’t been approved by the FDA.