Re: No smokeing
I never met a smoker to didn't become 'hooked' as a kid.
Whenever I hear a person say that he smokes because he enjoys it, I have difficulty believing him. I just think it's out of his control.
When I hear a person say that smoking calms his nerves, I understand that the nicotine has worn off and he needs another dose to stop the jitters.
When I hear a person say that it's his own business, I remember that cancer treatment is a big business that the taxpayers have to subsidize. I think, too, about the suffering of the women and children, widowed or orphaned by some otherwise good husband and father who just couldn't quit. It seems to me that it's somebody else's business, too.
When I see a smoker who is the parent of a child with respiratory problems, I am saddened.
Whenever I hear a person say he'd like to quit smoking, I believe him.
However:
Is nicotine addictive?
In February 2000, the Royal College of Physicians published a report on nicotine addiction which concluded that “Cigarettes are highly efficient nicotine delivery devices and are as addictive as drugs such as heroin or cocaine.” [1] Two years earlier, the report of the Government’s Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health stated that: “Over the past decade there has been increasing recognition that underlying smoking behaviour and its remarkable intractability to change is addiction to the drug nicotine. Nicotine has been shown to have effects on brain dopamine systems similar to those of drugs such as heroin and cocaine”. [2] Both the RCP and SCOTH reports confirmed the findings of the landmark review by the US Surgeon General in 1988 on nicotine which also concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting and that nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. [3]
Full article:
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact09.html
So to me, the entire argument of 'personal freedom' in the matter of smoking, is nothing but a big load of :bs