Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject: Nicotine
I'm looking for evidence to back up the fact that I think my aspergers makes me more irritated by smoking/smokers/smoke in general than non smoking NTs. All of my family smoke or at least everybody who I see. Which means I only visit smokers. Their houses and breaths reek. They are nice enough to leave the house when they smoke however, they still carry a smokey aura and their house's are still cancer chambers as they continue to smoke in them while I'm not there.I've tried talking scary cancer talk to them to which they replied along the lines of, 'yeah I'll get cancer...' as if it was nothing. It's not just my families smoke that bothers me. It's everyone else's when I walk down the street. I hold my breath then have to cough out the air. I don't think many people do this...do you?
No but I used to smoke, quit almost ten years ago. But once it was out of my system and I had quit for good (after trying several times), I find it does bother me now. I don't let anyone smoke in my home, and If I'm near someone who's smoking I almost feel panicky. And I know a lot of people who smoke, most of my co-workers and a few friends. Its not that I want to smoke, because the smell overpowers me and makes me feel almost nauseous and my heart starts to race.
I hate it too! It makes people stink, and even their whole house smells like pungent ash that makes me sick if I'm around it too long. I'm quite a hedonist, and I can empathize that people may be getting something they want out of the nicotine, but why can't they find a less damaging and more hygienic method for consuming their drug of CHOICE? I can imagine that a large portion of the nicotine does not survive combustion, which makes the process inefficient, and all that tar, ash, fire hazard and personal property degradation are not essential to what's really going on.
I guess what bothers me most is what it does to some of the smokers I care about. I can hold my breath and keep my distance to avoid the smell, and as long as I don't have to live with it every day, I don't complain as I am just visiting.
Contrary to popular belief, lung cancer is not the most likely outcome, nor is it the worst thing that can happen to you. I suppose one can take the view that by shortening lifespan, you're just clipping off years at the end. So if you get cancer, don't bother to treat it if that's what you were trying for anyway. The problem is that smoking takes away quality of life without necessarily shortening it. If as a nonsmoker you were going to live to 90, odds are you'll still live to 87 or so, but you'll spend the last decade to two in a wheelchair and adult diapers, with an oxygen tank. The morbid years still happen, just a bit sooner and more of them. Smoking actually makes it more likely that at some point you'll enter into a prolonged state of suffering and disability, in addition to other effects like increased proneness to injury (bone loss) and slower healing.
The world is Dennis Leary's ashtray and we just live in it!
Joined: Mar 24, 2008 Posts: 3407 Location: Confederate States of America
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:11 pm Post subject:
Or you could die of pancreatic or colon cancer, neither of which have any connection to smoking, or you might have a heart attack from the obesity smoking would have helped prevent by speeding up your metabolism, or pop an aneurysm straining on the toilet, slip in the shower and crack your skull, get hit by a bus crossing the street and - do you realize that every time you take a ride in an automobile you increase your odds of being in a fatal crash?
Yes, smoke smells. Duh (it's why some of us like burning leaves in Autumn). It also tastes wonderful! Sorry you're choosing to miss out on that. BTW, cologne makes my sinuses bleed, but I'm not such a baby about it that I feel the need to start a national campaign to eradicate perfumes, or even start a conversation to rationalize my dislike of decorative fragrance.
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why can't they find a less damaging and more hygienic method for consuming their drug of CHOICE?
Actually, if the nicotine is all a person wanted, there are several ways to imbibe, including the patch, nicotine gum (providing one also likes the flavor of mint ) and now the fabulously creative Electronic Cigarette - an amazing high tech substitute - just put a few drops of tobacco-flavored nicotine liquid in the mouthpiece cartridge, screw it onto the rechargeable battery-powered atomizer and take a hit.
In the time it takes you to draw it in, the atomizer heats the liquid, vaporizing it into simulated smoke - not real smoke, just water vapor, that dissipates into the air as soon as you blow it out. No actual tars, no smoky smell, no clouds of dusty ash hanging in the room. The smoker gets his lungful of warmth, the actual sensation of smoking, that calming dose of nicotine and nobody else in the area has to deal with unpleasant odors, burning eyes, or suffocating toxic clouds. And long term exposure won't blacken your lungs or damage your sensitive electronic equipment. Best of all, its considerably less expensive than regular cigarettes which carry half the national debt per carton in unfair 'sin' taxes.
How about that!? A solution that should satisfy smokers and non smokers alike! It should even make doctors and whiners about the cost to the health care system happy, since it's the tars in the smoke that cause most smoking related health issues anyway. So why are special interests lobbying the FDA to ban them from the market? Is it because its all being imported from China and Big Tobacco doesn't want the competition? Big Tobacco companies are as capable as anybody else of producing and selling nicotine liquid (I've read they actually spray the stuff on bales of cigarette tobacco to make it more addictive, but that's probably just hysterical propaganda). Could it just be that the sphincter-clenching Pleasure Police are never happy as long as someone else is at peace with their own existence?
Oh, and BTW:
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If as a nonsmoker you were going to live to 90, odds are you'll still live to 87 or so, but you'll spend the last decade to two in a wheelchair and adult diapers, with an oxygen tank. The morbid years still happen, just a bit sooner and more of them. Smoking actually makes it more likely that at some point you'll enter into a prolonged state of suffering and disability, in addition to other effects like increased proneness to injury (bone loss) and slower healing.
This is a load of crap. I've seen several people die from both cancer and emphysema ranging in age from 20s to 80s (not all smoking related, but some were), and all went very quickly, no wheelchairs or diapers involved for any of them. From diagnosis to funeral was typically eight to ten months, in an increasing decline that seems to speed up the closer it gets to the end. Not saying its a pleasant way to shuffle off this mortal coil, but then (other than passing in sleep) what is?
The worst, in terms of loss of dignity, is Alzheimer's Disease - and jokes about not remembering it notwithstanding, even those who can't remember their childrens' names know enough to be humiliated when they can't help soiling themselves. All that and no smoking involved. My point is, you can live the life of a saint, keep the regimen of an athlete and do everything else right and there is still no predicting how or when the end will come and you can still die with drool and pudding on your chin and a load in your pants. All these horror stories and death scare tactics provide no rationalization either for smoking or not smoking. Its a personal choice and that's all there is to it. If it's not your choice, just walk away. I can almost guarantee no one will chase you down and shove a cigarette into your mouth.
Unless you start muttering all that pantywaist B*llSh*t about second-hand smoke. God, I hate pu**ies. _________________ "I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel - but I am, so that's how it comes out."
- Bill Hicks
Joined: Oct 18, 2009 Posts: 534 Location: I think I'm lost
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:20 pm Post subject:
Willard wrote:
BTW, cologne makes my sinuses bleed, but I'm not such a baby about it that I feel the need to start a national campaign to eradicate perfumes, or even start a conversation to rationalize my dislike of decorative fragrance.
Now that's funny.
edit: no offense OP
Last edited by FaithHopeCheese on Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:33 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 04, 2009 Posts: 1358 Location: New York
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:31 pm Post subject:
I'm that way too around cigarette smoke to the point that I actually start gagging and can't stop if I get too close to it. Needless to say, I don't get around people who smoke very often. I'm sorry you have a whole family of smokers. That sounds hard.
Actually, if the nicotine is all a person wanted, there are several ways to imbibe, including the patch, nicotine gum (providing one also likes the flavor of mint ) and now the fabulously creative Electronic Cigarette - an amazing high tech substitute - just put a few drops of tobacco-flavored nicotine liquid in the mouthpiece cartridge, screw it onto the rechargeable battery-powered atomizer and take a hit.
In the time it takes you to draw it in, the atomizer heats the liquid, vaporizing it into simulated smoke - not real smoke, just water vapor, that dissipates into the air as soon as you blow it out. No actual tars, no smoky smell, no clouds of dusty ash hanging in the room. The smoker gets his lungful of warmth, the actual sensation of smoking, that calming dose of nicotine and nobody else in the area has to deal with unpleasant odors, burning eyes, or suffocating toxic clouds. And long term exposure won't blacken your lungs or damage your sensitive electronic equipment. Best of all, its considerably less expensive than regular cigarettes which carry half the national debt per carton in unfair 'sin' taxes.
How about that!? A solution that should satisfy smokers and non smokers alike! It should even make doctors and whiners about the cost to the health care system happy, since it's the tars in the smoke that cause most smoking related health issues anyway. So why are special interests lobbying the FDA to ban them from the market? Is it because its all being imported from China and Big Tobacco doesn't want the competition? Big Tobacco companies are as capable as anybody else of producing and selling nicotine liquid (I've read they actually spray the stuff on bales of cigarette tobacco to make it more addictive, but that's probably just hysterical propaganda). Could it just be that the sphincter-clenching Pleasure Police are never happy as long as someone else is at peace with their own existence?
I'm with you on this. It's a great idea that I hope people check out for themselves. Like I said, it's not pleasure I'm against, but unnecessary damage at any age. I would probably regard this as an acceptable compromise if I were faced with the choice of living with/becoming more involved with a smoker. I should check it out for myself, because until I've seen it, I can't tell for sure how I feel about it.
Willard wrote:
Unless you start muttering all that pantywaist B*llSh*t about second-hand smoke. God, I hate pu**ies.
But even if secondhand smoke isn't quite concentrated enough to disable my cilia and cause permanent damage to me, I still don't like it and I feel about the same way about it as you might feel about farting or unmitigated BO, or seeing someone take a dump in the middle of the street. BTW I don't really like cologne either.
I have at least one family member who spent a decade or so in the wheelchair condition because of smoking, and someone else I know is sick with pneumonia all the time because of it. Will it cause some sudden calamity in the distant future for any one person? Maybe, or maybe the person might be hit by a bus tomorrow. However, for many smokers bad things are happening Right Now, cancer or no.
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