Smoking - so uncool its hella cool?

I cannot believe that the idea of smoking has been sold as "cool" to The Masses, when basically, given the amount of campaign contributions the Tobacco Industry contributes to the right wing, every pack of Marlboros you buy might as well be a vote for Pat Buchannan.

If you want to kill yourself, please do so in a manner that does not affect *my* health. Like, drink yourself to death like a real man.

Oh, I've sooo done that...my mum haad to give me mouth to mouth once as a result...cmoking is faar better because it pisses people off soooo much. pFFF

What really irritates me are the really self-righteous anti- smoking zealots, like "The Truth" commercials that air on US television. They attempt to make smoking seem unhip, but they do so in such a smug and self-righteous fashion it's almost enough to make me take up smoking.

x0x0

The problem is, I really don't give that much of a shit if I'm ruining everyone else's health in a bar or a club. I don't care if that makes me a bitch, because my theory is that if it bothers you that much, either don't go, or stand in an area where people aren't smoking. You know what you're in for when you go and I hate, hate, hate it when people go to a club and then complain about the cigarettes. It's like going to one and complaining about the drunks. It's different in a restaurant - I'll sit in the smoking section if they have one, but I'll wait til someone else lights up around me or has obviously lit up, and I"ll blow the smoke as far away from people as I can. At my own house, I smoke out the window, and if I have visitors I'll ask them if they mind (I've yet to be told yes). Even if I'm sitting with a nonsmoker friend, I'll ask if they mind.

I just hate the anti-smoking zealots, really. It's always the same thing - you're killing me with your smoke! Yes, if you're a fetus, sure. But I've read far too many contradictory studies on the effects of *second-hand* smoke to actually care. And I hate people who feel it's their right to lecture me on what to do with myself.

The difference between being around drunks and being around smokers is that, unless the person is so drunk that they are spilling their beer on you, a drunk does not INFLICT their habit on you the way that smokers do. As they say about free speach, your right to nasty habits ENDS at the tip of my nose.

I don't need any government studies to tell me that when someone is smoking near me, my eyes water, my throat closes up and I cough, I have difficulty breathing, etc. etc. etc. Cigarette smoking MAKES ME ILL. Why should the perverse, disgusting habits of a few people make my life hell? I have as much of a right to be in a restaurant, bar or nightclub as a fucking smoker. Why do their rights outweigh mine?

It bothers me, as a music fan, and as a performer, when I go to a club and the place is thick with cigarette smoke. Do you know how hard it is to SING in that sort of an evironment?

I am not contributing to this thread any more, because it makes me very cross. I think smoking is one of the most inconsiderate and rude things a person can do. When I see someone smoking, all I think is "what a fucking twat, that they think their right to enjoy themself outweighs my rights to be here." FUCK THAT.

Norman - "You are paying a lot of money to some of the scummiest corporations in the world" - I presume you don't buy anything from a supermarket, a major record label, etc. etc.

The high UK tax on fags also helps pays for the NHS, schools, etc. etc.

Book gigs in non smoking nightclubs. They do exist, in the US at least. I mean, I understand your specific point that you personally have a very high sensitivity to something in the smoke, and that's unfortunate and I'm sorry for you if that's the case, and if you were at my house, I wouldn't smoke near you. Most anti-smoking zealots do NOT have that problem - I'm talking in the US here, which seems to be a whole hell of a lot more anti-smoking in general than anywhere in Europe.

As for drunks not impeding on anyone besides themselves, all I can say is then you've either not been around enough drunks or you were too drunk yourself to notice (oh, I'm just kidding, sit down, girl!). I mean, our whole NYC meet was about being impeded upon by vicious drunkenness. In all seriousness though, you haven't seen bloody bar brawls? Men haven't rather ridiculously, irritatingly and threateningly hit on you when drunk? You've never seen someone smash up a glass and cut themselves? No one's thrown mussell shells off a roof at cars around you? Okay, well that last one might be a special kind of drunk stupid, but the rest of them are very common. Drinking most certainly impedes upon other people's right to enjoy themselves because there are a lot of people who don't know when to stop.

I just hate the anti-smoking zealots, really. It's always the same thing - you're killing me with your smoke!

I don't actually care abt the health issue, because I have rheumatoid arthritis, so old age is something I'm not planning on staying around for, IT'S THE GODDAMN FUCKING DISGUSTING SMELL I object to. You don't notice it because yr used to it, but trust me, picking up yer clothes after a night out w/smokers - the way it smells, U may as well have dipped them in dogshit.....

aNDReW L sez:

Norman - "You are paying a lot of money to some of the scummiest corporations in the world" - I presume you don't buy anything from a supermarket, a major record label, etc. etc.

The high UK tax on fags also helps pays for the NHS, schools, etc. etc.

Sorry Andrew, but that's really fucking lame. If you can't see that there's a big, big difference between Asda, Tesco, Sony/whoever, etc and big tobacco, then you really need to take a closer look at the world around you. Last time I checked, no supermarket chain made itself extremely wealthy selling a single highly addictive product which comprehensively fux0rs the heath of its users, whilst delivering no great reward that I can see. And, no record company that I know of regularly attempts to supress research showing that its products are harmful to one's health, whilst sponsoring quasi-research which surprise! shows that its products aren't that bad really. Coming out with that line abt taxes contributing to health & education just makes you sound like a phillip morris shill. Do you know any health industry workers by any chance? Would you like to ask them about the cost of health care to an emphysema (SP?) sufferer? or a lung cancer sufferer? Or do you actually give a shit? Go on, fckng light another up......

I don't know, it makes me laugh, this lot - I see a bunch of smokers getting all antsy and calling out "health fascist!" How obvious does it have to be? If I don't smoke in your vicinity IT DOES NOT AFFECT YOU IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. If you smoke in my vicinity you are effectively FORCING me to inhale poison. That's all there is to it, I mean what the fck is this, cognitive dissonance thread, or something? If you don't care about that, well, OK, but don't start calling me, or non-smokers like me fascist/authoritarian/whatever just because we object to that. From my point of view, I have a perfect right to object to it, more so than you have to object to my objecting, or something.

x0x0

Don't hang out with smokers if you don't like the smell. Simple as that. Quite frankly, there's nothing I like less than self-righteous blubbering about smoking, so you might be giving us a break by leaving us alone for the night out.

And one last thing: I suppose you never watch all the news reports on how dirty supermarkets are and how half of their meat/dairy is contaminated at certain chains? You don't think they go about surpressing that? That's the most foolish statement I've ever heard anyone say. If you think that tobacco companies are the only ones supressing info - sometimes more dangerous and wide reaching info - then you are extrodinarily naive.

"Do you know any health industry workers by any chance?" Well, quite a few as it happens, including a doctor who smokes more than me. And yes, the cost of treating smoking-related diseases is hellishly expensive. As is the cost of treating people who drink too much, who eat too many doughnuts, who like fighting, who sustain injuries playing sports, who contract STDS from unsafe sex etc. etc. If we were to limit healthcare to those people who hadn't done something unhealthy/dangerous all the NHS waiting lists would vanish overnight. My point is, smokers are one of the few 'burdens' on the NHS who also (materially) contribute something as well.

And again, of course the tobacco companies are unscrupulous scumbags, but so are ALL corporations. The products that they sell may not be as obviously harmful and addictive as cigs, but many of the methods used to sell them and make profit can contribute to human misery just as much (cf Nestle selling milk powder to the Third World). Visit www.boycottindex.com for a long list of shitty, rotten business practises on the part of large corporations that have a negative impact on human happiness (including your example, Sony.)

Now, can't we talk abt prog or something...

Right,

I don't actually care abt the health issue, because I have rheumatoid arthritis, so old age is something I'm not planning on staying around for, IT'S THE GODDAMN FUCKING DISGUSTING SMELL I object to. You don't notice it because yr used to it, but trust me, picking up yer clothes after a night out w/smokers - the way it smells, U may as well have dipped them in dogshit.....

I don't actually care abt the health issue

IT'S THE GODDAMN FUCKING DISGUSTING SMELL

I have to like someone who smokes a LOT before I put up with the stench. As far as contaminated dairy produce and meat goes, for fuxake, I'm british. Don't you think I'm WELL AWARE that our meat & milk is contaminated? If our supermarkets did try to supress this information, then they did a pretty fckng lame job, judging by the pics of burning foot & mouth infected cattle in all of our newspapers for most of this year, and the fact that in the wake of BSE, our meat products are as like leprosy to foreign markets. It's also fairly well known that milk suppliers do such dandy things as mix past its sell by date milk back into bulk quantities of good milk, rather than chuck it out. Mmmm.

I get round this by:

1/ being VERY choosy abt where I buy milk, and not using very much of it.

2/ not eating meat at all.

Easy really. Anyway, spare me the snidey comments re self righteous blubbering. You can be pretty self righteous yourself. Smoke all the fuck you want, seeing as yer thousands of miles away. Smoke ten king-size @ once, if U like. Actually, I don't give a shit. If U think I'm going to waste online time hunting fer case studies RE passive smoking so U can just shoot 'em down in some snidey manner, then you've got a wait ahead of U. I'll just continue to socialise with those smokers who are considerate in their use of tobacco, which, ironically enough, going on yer previous post, includes people like you.....

now, go ahead and have the last word, if it doth please you to do so.

x0x0

blah. Enough for this evening....

See, I wouldn't smoke around Kate. I WOULD smoke around you, to piss you off.

Mark, you are so totally right. Drugs should be sold in the supermarket with cigarettes anyhow, it's the only way to get around the whole shebang. The government could tax it and use it to pay off things (that's the funniest thing about the whole "Tobacco companies are evil" bullshit - it's a mutually productive relationship), drug addicts could get safe(r), clean doses, plus it'd probably lessen the amount of kids starting up since it'd not be a cool, screwing-the-man thing to do. It is a sham concocted to keep government officials in business and to keep down certain groups of people.

I used to smoke two, maybe three cigarettes a day in college. I only smoked when I was with people who were themselves smokers or by myself. If I was walking down the street smoking and saw someone coming towards me, I would hold off on inhaling so that this person would not get a cloud full of second-hand smoke in their faces. Basically, I recognized that my habit was considered to be spectauclarly invase by some and tried to go out of my way to keep it from impeding other people.

This did not prevent people from running across the street as if I had leprocy while giving me levil looks if they turned a corner and saw me holding a cigarette at the end of the block. Or, even better, the person who crossed the street specifically to yell at me for killing children with my disgusting destrucitve habit (never mind that there were no children in sight and I never EVER smoked when I knew that I was around kids). I was unbelievable. When I finally quit, it was partially because my girlfriend was deeply allergic to the smoke, but also because people were such aggressive pricks about the whole thing and I didn't enjoy it enough to put up with the bullshit.

Don't think for a second that non-smokers hold the asshole monopoly on this issue, because they quite clearly DO NOT.

Smoking if someone's asked you not to = rude.

Rudeness = endemic.

Agreed re. self-righteousness of both sides. Something about the whole argument makes everyone sound like either the guy from Consolidated or like Fred Durst. Best counter-argument to "You dont have to go where people smoke" is "You don't have to smoke", surely? And then nobody gets anywhere. Also by similar logic anyone Ally's age doesn't have a leg to stand on complaining about health fascism since they could have seen which way things were going when they started up.

I don't understand your comment re: health facism, Tom - what does being well aware that smoking is unhealthy for a smoker have to do with anything?

On one hand, it's a vile, disgusting habit. Being around my father 8 hours a day (chronic colds, coughs from the vats of Hell, phlegm, phlegm, and teeth the color of 70s flatware, but still smokes in our fucking office) doesn't dissuade me from my stance. I know for a fact that my health has gotten shittier since I started working in that office 3 years ago, mostly due to being around cigarette smoke (about 3-4 cigs worth) every single day. (Not that I'm getting cancer or losing limbs; my allergies kick up more often, though, and I get sick with much more ease than I did in the past.)

That said, smokers have rights, too. If you go to a club that allows smoking, you have to deal with it. When someone sparks up near you, either ask them to move, or move yourself. Idiots that take time out of their day to chastize people for deigning to indulge in a cigarette deserve to be used as ashtrays. Grandstanding & preaching should be saved for family members, good friends, & lovers, and only then in moderation (unless you WANT to start a fight). (Of course, my ex-gal rarely respected my request to not smoke when around me, and one time even kissed me after an inhale. Mmmm. Tar & lip gloss - mighty fine bouquet. Hence, ex-gal.)

Personally, the occasional clove is OK. (I think I've had, like, 3 in the past 2 years.) Regular cigarettes are ass, though. Never mind the carcinogenic factors - what about BURNS? Your clothes, your car upholstery, yourself? As far as relieving stress, I find ranting & raving like a potty-mouthed asylum patient does wonders. And is often somewhat amusing.

When my friends smoke, I just give them a wide berth, and offer a piece of chewing gum afterwards.

And my real problem isn't so much with the smoking itself, but the assholes that I seem to run into that can't respect my right to object.

As for cloves - argh! Those are horrible for you, they're worse than newports :)

As far as me dad (AKA The Boss), he got his karmic come-uppance at the office yesterday. He usually uses an emptied Coke can as his ashtray. Well, he drank his Coke (while watching TV - don't ask), then started ashing his ciggy in the can, and then inadvertently took a swig of said ashtray. Ah, if only I hadn't been sequestering myself in my office when it happened. Ah, yes.

David: EEEEEEW that's sick as fuck. I hate that, I won't even drink at a bar if I leave my drink unattended for a minute cos I know drunk assholes will accidentally(or purposefully, depending on the drunk asshole) ash in my drink. We had to use cups filled with water as ashtrays in the hotel, and the look of it turned my stomach to the point where I mad hunted for the stupid ashtray (which was inexplicably hidden).

For an illustration of just how different attitudes used to be, though, you should see the 1964 British TV adverts I was watching yesterday. The portrayal of smoking as something totally glamorous, aspirational, and sexy, makes me retrospectively vom.

Nothing to do with smoking making you unhealthy - so does lots of stuff. I was just saying that your argument of "well you know these places are going to be smoky and you went so dont complain when they are" seems pretty much on a level with someone saying "well you knew you were going to get grief from health fascists and you started smoking so dont complain when you do"

Whereas I reckon it is possible for you to know a thing has consequences, do the thing and still be allowed to complain about the consequences.

However the real menace here is Smoke Machines. I was at a club last night and got a faceful of CO2. I had to have two pints before my body could get enough oxygen back into the system for me to start dancing. Oh - and for the DJ to stop playing that fucking Mr Mister Tupac track.

I only think smoking is cool cos our landlord is an air steward and gets me cheap duty frees which my so-called friends steal.

However I generally try not to cause offence by smoking. What irritates me is when people claim not to mind me smoking near them then proceed to make an elaborate show of waving away any smoke that comes in a 10 foot radius of them. If you don't want me to smoke say so!

Drinking - now there's something that makes you a total freak from Mars if you don't do it, especially when you're 18 or so. Reactions to this from otherwise intelligent people are sometimes remarkably stupid.

"those alerts will bounce back to us if the address you type isn't valid." - Cool can i flood ya bitches?

as for smoking, seems here that posters should cite their nationality when making a point, cos as this thread shows attitudes/expectations/experiences of british and american people are a million miles apart...... out of interest, why did smokers here start up?

I'm fairly sure, once the bloomberg smoking ban in bars and restaurants took effect in 2003 and a lot of people I knew finally said "fuck it, we have kids, this shit has to go," that for the next 10 years, I was the worst smoker anyone knew. Those new parents in those days, as well as lots of people who had never smoked, were often of the mind that this is New York, this is not Branson MO, people should be able to smoke in social spaces, but that sentiment went away pretty quick. The habit was taxed exorbitantly around that time, but me and other smokers kept at it. The fellowship of other smokers during the trip outside is real, very nice thing.

I lived by myself in the EV, freelanced from home, and thus could do it as much as I wanted. I think what was most pathetic was when I furtively had to go outside at any family event or any nice dinner; sometimes I had the fellowship of other degenerates, but increasingly it was just me, and the grossness, the shame, of sneaking away at events started to get to me. When I did have office jobs, I took frequent smoke breaks, and increasingly it was looked down upon, and while I was fired from each for other reasons, it certainly contributed.

I led a very popular band with a weekly residency in the lower east side for four years by 2003, and I could not conceive of playing loud rock and roll music without drinking and smoking onstage. But eventually I could. I similarly could not conceive of smoking not being a part of every moment of the day. But eventually I could. One thing that smoking a cig did, when you are drinking a bit too much and too fast, was to provide a certain clarity and sharpening of senses and awareness when you otherwise were gonna get too fucked up. At last that is true for me.

In the late 2000s/early 2010s, I would go to Hoboken and buy a half a carton. Then, when I lived in Ditmas park, the yemeni guy at the bodega would sell me six loosies at a time. By this time I was married and understood I had to quit, but I still kept down to five or six a day, not on weekends, always away from my wife, although she could smell it on me (I don't see how anyone can effectively hide their habit from loved ones whose noses work); and I would do it at shows and when I was hanging out at bars. I also, when my first daughter was a baby and not in day care yet, would smoke while pushing her in the pram. That's depraved, but not as depraved as picking up and smoking half finished cigs on the sidewalk, which I did when I was trying to not buy packs.

I finally quit in feb 2020, having lived outside NYC for two years: seeing people smoke where I live is exceedingly rare, but I did sneak em when my wife was at work. When she and 3 year old were home all the time strating in march 2020 (and others around the globe who had quit restarted here and there), I had the further reinforcement to not do it. I have smoked about ten times since 2020, and it generally wasn't pleasant, and certainly not "oh fuck yeah, I've missed the warm embrace of my exalted mistresses Nicotine and Tobacco."

When coming to NYC in 2021 and 2022, I had never seen as few tobacco smokers in my life: but Midtown was lousy with dope smoking, and one would think that wouldn't be so. Since then, i have seen tobacco smoking at rates almost approaching conventional NYC levels. When I went to LA in 2022, I could not believe how many tobacco smokers I encountered, as other visits in the 1990s-2010s revealed none.

American Spirits were my overwhelming preference; when I was weaning off of the habit, Camels and Marlboros. So in the fall, when I went to Tv on the radio/Flying Lotus/ Sudan Archives show under the Koscukio bridge, I bummed the real light, like diet cigarettes, and it was nice alongside the beer and reefuh.

I'm fairly sure, once the bloomberg smoking ban in bars and restaurants took effect in 2003 and a lot of people I knew finally said "fuck it, we have kids, this shit has to go," that for the next 10 years, I was the worst smoker anyone knew. Those new parents in those days, as well as lots of people who had never smoked, were often of the mind that this is New York, this is not Branson MO, people should be able to smoke in social spaces, but that sentiment went away pretty quick. The habit was taxed exorbitantly around that time, but me and other smokers kept at it. The fellowship of other smokers during the trip outside is real, very nice thing.

I lived by myself in the EV, freelanced from home, and thus could do it as much as I wanted. I think what was most pathetic was when I furtively had to go outside at any family event or any nice dinner; sometimes I had the fellowship of other degenerates, but increasingly it was just me, and the grossness, the shame, of sneaking away at events started to get to me. When I did have office jobs, I took frequent smoke breaks, and increasingly it was looked down upon, and while I was fired from each for other reasons, it certainly contributed.

I led a very popular band with a weekly residency in the lower east side for four years by 2003, and I could not conceive of playing loud rock and roll music without drinking and smoking onstage. But eventually I could. I similarly could not conceive of smoking not being a part of every moment of the day. But eventually I could. One thing that smoking a cig did, when you are drinking a bit too much and too fast, was to provide a certain clarity and sharpening of senses and awareness when you otherwise were gonna get too fucked up. At last that is true for me.

In the late 2000s/early 2010s, I would go to Hoboken and buy a half a carton. Then, when I lived in Ditmas park, the yemeni guy at the bodega would sell me six loosies at a time. By this time I was married and understood I had to quit, but I still kept down to five or six a day, not on weekends, always away from my wife, although she could smell it on me (I don't see how anyone can effectively hide their habit from loved ones whose noses work); and I would do it at shows and when I was hanging out at bars. I also, when my first daughter was a baby and not in day care yet, would smoke while pushing her in the pram. That's depraved, but not as depraved as picking up and smoking half finished cigs on the sidewalk, which I did when I was trying to not buy packs.

I finally quit in feb 2020, having lived outside NYC for two years: seeing people smoke where I live is exceedingly rare, but I did sneak em when my wife was at work. When she and 3 year old were home all the time strating in march 2020 (and others around the globe who had quit restarted here and there), I had the further reinforcement to not do it. I have smoked about ten times since 2020, and it generally wasn't pleasant, and certainly not "oh fuck yeah, I've missed the warm embrace of my exalted mistresses Nicotine and Tobacco."

When coming to NYC in 2021 and 2022, I had never seen as few tobacco smokers in my life: but Midtown was lousy with dope smoking, and one would think that wouldn't be so. Since then, i have seen tobacco smoking at rates almost approaching conventional NYC levels. When I went to LA in 2022, I could not believe how many tobacco smokers I encountered, as other visits in the 1990s-2010s revealed none.

American Spirits were my overwhelming preference; when I was weaning off of the habit, Camels and Marlboros. So in the fall, when I went to Tv on the radio/Flying Lotus/ Sudan Archives show under the Koscukio bridge, I bummed the real light, like diet cigarettes, and it was nice alongside the beer and reefuh.

Bad form! Sorry everybody!

As a visitor I'll confirm that in my several trips to NYC since 2002 I've seen more smokers than at any point since the early '00s. The pandemic to blame?

*since 2022

thats a good point about clarity when drinking too much, back in the day I'd party a lot and there would be moments where everything would get a bit wild and because you were wasted your brain couldn't really comprehend what was going on, going outside for a cig was a good way to slow things down and center yourself with a smaller group of people and have a real conversation

nicotine messes with alcohol metabolism in several different ways, almost all of which make you feel you can drink more

The best snapshot I have of "times were different then" was seeing Sheryl Crow open up for Crowded House in 1994, and she had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

in other news, on my commute home last week, I was stopped next to two women in an adjacent car who were just straight up passing a joint back and forth while sitting at the stoplight!

I live in the bay area, I see this multiple times a day (if I leave my house).

i remember thinking how weird it was to go watch a band play and to be able to see them crystal clear onstage without the fug of smoke - and i remember thinking that it was as if the show were being staged for television, with no smoking allowed because it would besmirch the video quality. but it was just a normal show. of course rock venues very quickly realised that in order to achieve the right levels of visual shagginess associated with rick and roll they needed to pump in fake smoke in the form of dry ice, which they pretty much do, at the larger venues anyway, to this day

nicotine messes with alcohol metabolism in several different ways, almost all of which make you feel you can drink more

― mh, Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:48 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Never thought about that, but very interesting. When I quit smoking, alcohol became more of a problem for me than it previously was. My relationship to alcohol changed, at least. Some of that I attributed to the fact that, with no need to take a break from drinking to smoke, I was just replacing the hand-to-mouth action with more booze. But it would make sense that there was some sort of metabolic tempering effect as well.

The best snapshot I have of "times were different then" was seeing Sheryl Crow open up for Crowded House in 1994, and she had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

All she wanted to do was have a little fun before she dies

I used to come home from shows so smokey I'd have to shower and throw my stinky clothes in their own dedicated hamper. Don't miss that one bit.

why should one worker, who does not smoke, have to stay in the office and work, while another that does smoke gets to go outside for a few minutes several times a day?

Allow non-smokers to go outside (for piss breaks)

Love the idea of people lined up outside in the winter, some smoking, some peeing.

When I started growing my hair out in college and seeing shows, a post-show shower, even at like 1 or 2 am, became a necessity, thanks to my hair being an all too perfect trap for smoke. That ban couldn't happen soon enough.

there's an old 1920's light fixture in my place that has fake cardboard candles and they're like a deep burnt umber now, though they used to be white... almost a century of smoking inside. (Weirdly enough, you can buy new ones at the hardware store, I've just never bothered)

yesterday I suddenly remembered the movie Smoke, which was a big deal for a while in the mid-90s but seems to have had no cultural legacy.

The bar where I go for karaoke Thursdays shut down for a month in 2016 to deodorize the place and scrape the tar off the ceiling after it finally banned smoking that summer (Florida allows smoking indoors if food accounts for less than 10% of sales; only of standalone Miami bars still allow it).

*only a couple of

yesterday I suddenly remembered the movie Smoke, which was a big deal for a while in the mid-90s but seems to have had no cultural legacy

Wayne Wang and Paul Auster. Yeah i wonder how that holds up.

Hey man, do you not remember the wisdom of the sage?

https://media.tenor.com/b_bS_gY8gnQAAAAe/reality-bites-coffee.png

(I wish I could forget.)

But it's all you need.

It's all YOU need, you mean. That and Big Mountain.

Most disgusting smoking moment I ever experienced was sometime in the very early 00s at the Trocadero in Philly right before PA banned smoking. They had limited smoking to a single vestibule about 20 x 20 and there were so many smokers in there. I lit a cigarette, took a drag or two and had to tap out. It was like being inside a cigarette.

I went to a Gilman St retrospective/slideshow a couple weeks ago and that came up... Just how thick the smoke was at shows and how gross it was.. I was guilty in the early 90s, puffing away right in front! seemed like everybody was

I no longer smoke, and I find the taste of them revolting now (but tbh I always did), but I do still vape. I gave up smokes more pragmatically because a) vapes just taste nicer and at the time were easy to get and b) at $50 a pack I couldn't afford to smoke anymore.

Now, theyve banned vapes outright and smokes are impossibly expensive. What they could have done is let vapes stay legal and perhaps taxed a little, and banned smokes outright. I know a lot of people like me who quit smoking via vaping.

Thing is though - banning vapes and making cigs $60 a pack has instead created a MASSIVE organized crime black market especially in my state. You can now buy bootleg smokes for $10 that are made fuck knows where. I dont know if anyone buys legit ones anymore. The police do bugger all to stop it - occasional raids. And as a result, a store gets firebombed what seems like once a week by some OC crew or another.

yeah, that all sounds like a recipe for smuggling and black marketing... I remember (back in the 90s) some Canadians telling us about cigs being smuggled up from Minnesota indian reservations, via snowmobiles on frozen rivers! That sounds like an adventure

Yeah the black market is Prohibition-era ridiculous at this point. All they have to do is unban vapes and put some proper checks in place (dont sell them to under 18s!) and make smokes a reasonable price. But it wont happen.

How did that lifetime smoke purchasing ban pan out in the UK? is it policed at all?

xp That's actually what the movie Balto was about before Universal Pictures stepped in and cleaned up the script

anyone in SF remember that smoking area at the Hemlock? gag.

Smuggling smokes was a big subplot of Wiseguy, the book Goodfellas was based on.

Kinda like Kramer and Newman's Michigan 10¢ deposit plan. Henry Hill would buy cartons from South Carolina where there hardly was any cigarette tax and sell 'em up north.

I used to have a collection of cigarette packages with different state stamps on the bottom. Yes, I threw them away eventually.

I can’t remember if it was the Warsaw or Krakow airport when I visited Poland, but their smoking area was this plexiglass box in the middle of the walkway with ventilation sucking the smoke out of the building. it looked like a little zoo for smokers

I remember this smoking “area” in Heathrow that’s just this massive gloomy high ceilinged dark room

there was a Denny's on a median off the NY Thruway west of Buffalo that used to have a sealed-off smoking area, glass-enclosed, like a zoo exhibit. you could sit out there and watch all the truckers and young bleary-eyed college students in there trapped in a haze. i sat in there once (part of the latter group), had one smoke and probably had half a dozen more via secondhand enjoyment.

Cancer Over My Hammy

eggs over-wheezy

covered, smothered

My father used to get us seats in a restaurant's smoking section not because he smoked, but because he figured it would be a shorter wait time due to others not wanting to sit there.

I remember a group of 15yo stoner girls who used to go to Perkins/Denny’s to sit and puff cigs in the smoking section, but were occasionally thwarted by the host/ess who would seat them in non-smoking for being too young to smoke.

David Lynch seemed at peace with it, but I'd rather be be alive.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 29, 2026 10:57 AM (two days ago)

i look at lynch as modeling what i'd call "radical acceptance". "well, i smoked my whole life and now i can't work anymore and in fact now i'm dying, this was a predictable outcome". he spent his whole life modeling how to make peace with bullshit. tobacco, and the way it was foisted on generations by corporations who profited off a product they _knew_ would kill their customers, the way they used their power and influence for the purpose of what we would now call "regulatory capture", is fucking bullshit. my mom has been smoking since she was 19 and she's been trying to quit smoking since she was 19. i consider myself lucky that i never got into that stuff. people talk shit about autistic people using stim toys and stim toys tend not to fucking cause cancer.

i'm not fit. i have my vices. i'm not in good health and it sucks and i accept personal responsibility and am i _mad_ at the people who push addictive substances on us today who encourage addiction and pathology and profit off making us miserable? i sure as fuck am. happy may day.

---

Actually all my healthiest fittest running-biking-hiking 50-something friends are parents.

lol yes I've noticed it with some straight friends.

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, April 29, 2026 12:38 PM (two days ago)

i got a friend a year older than me who had a massive coronary at the age of, i think, 42. yeah he's fucking healthy, his dad died when he was a kid and he didn't want his son to go through the same. also, like, not to put too fine a point on it, cishet people _don't_ go through the insane levels of trauma that we do, and trauma is the cause of these addictive behaviors.

I remember buying a pack of non-filtered Camels for 65 cents from a bowling alley vending machine, when I was about 14 or so... you had to be quick so nobody saw you

Anyone else remember smoking on airplanes? Gah, that was so terrible it's hard to believe it ever happened.

Also, lol at "smoking sections" in restaurants. Like, Korean BBQ places have industrial exhaust vents over every table and you still leave smelling like (delicious) smoke. Hell, our neighbor's house more or less burned down last week (he's OK), and I had to take a shower after watching the firefighters put it out.

I worked in a San Francisco office tower years ago and one of the old time employees described this thick layer of smoke wafting through the office all day long.. everyone had ashtrays on their desks and people lit up during meetings... I think this would have been like the late 80s. Unimaginable these days

Re: smoking on airplanes, I had an Indonesian coworker and she said on local flights over there, people STILL smoke on planes and the seats still have ashtrays.. often smoking cloves

My wife works in advertising, and her (giant) company at least used to have some cigarette clients (which was always her red line, she wouldn't work with them). Supposedly for years the floor that handled that stuff allowed smoking, even after the ban, but I think that's since been nixed.

I smoke cigarettes for exactly one week every year

― trm (tombotomod), Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:37 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Which week?

― peace, man, Thursday, April 30, 2026 8:46 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Still very curious about this, tombot.

I'm going in for hypnosis this coming week! My former therapist, when I asked her about it, she told me that "there was enough evidence of recovery that she couldn't help but wholeheartedly recommend it." My L.A. friend told me he has three friends who successfully quit after being hypnotised... with an odd caveat, in that the hypnosis only worked for five years, or ten years, and to-the-day the ex-smoker would start again after a precise period. Eerie!

Well, you need to read the form carefully, and tell the hypnotist, "Do not under any circumstances command me to start smoking again after exactly five years. If you do, I will demand a refund."

it's hard to find good sleeper agents these days who might be willing to "do the needful" we are all in need of occurring, we just get people who inexplicably decide to take up smoking again