Post a controversial opinion

Also driving any time from 3:30pm ish to 6:30pm ish west of the 405 (santa monica/west la area) is the worst hell on earth i have ever had the misfortune of enduring

Takes probably 45 minutes to drive what? 5 miles (8 km)?

About to have a cigarette. Going to double down on my earlier controp and say that not smoking is bad for you.

I've tried it both ways, smoking and not. Smoking had its attractions and it is an underrated drug imo, but its a cumulative process. the longer you smoke, the more the returns diminish and the cost soars. From personal experience, over the long term, I endorse not smoking over smoking. Just not worth it after about six or eight years, but by then you're on the hook and being reeled in like a fish to the net.

how many cigarettes per day did you smoke on avg?

i smoke a pack a day - get performative coughs every day from vancouverites. I know y'all are health conscious but it drives me nuts feeling like an exiled person

I was about a pack a day. I rolled my own for the first seven years, then switched to filterless Camels for a couple of years. then I started tapering down to half a pack, trying to quit, which took me another three years to accomplish.

btw, quitting is a long term process, even after you stop lighting up. it took me about five years for the desire to abate to where I rarely thought about it any more.

word. i smoke 5 most days, 10 at most if i'm out. never gotten close to pack a day

quitting smoking sounds horrible so i'll just smoke until i die

aimless, smoking yer own rolled ones is way better - also using matches gets a better smoke goin' but lighters obviously are easier to use. I quit for 3 years and started again 5 months ago, once a smoker...as they say.

a cigarette tastes much better lit with a match

it's the sulfer from the matchead

I’ll stick to playing with matches.

Smoked for 15 years, quit 16 years ago, dgaf if I never smoke again. I have missed it maybe 3-5 times in that 16 year stretch. I was able to give up because I felt it wasn't "me". While I still felt like "I" smoked and I was giving up because of good reasons, it never lasted. But as soon as I realised I wanted to not need cigarettes it was easy. I got to a pack a day but tapered to 3-5.

first 3 days are hell ime, 21 days later and ya done

Downtown Vancouver has gas stations eg. corner of davie & burrard st. Sorry to be so local but this stuff is overstated perhaps by people with no car who don't recall where gas stations are because they don't use them?

I’ve never tried to quit smoking, so I don’t know how hard it would be. I smoke filterless roll ups, but then never tried a cigarette until I was 22. But my grandfather died of lung cancer (maybe work related) and my dad has one lung (smoking related). But I’m much more likely to die because of mental illness - and a crazy amount of people with bipolar disorder smoke. I think it’s because manic episodes make it impossible to maintain. I quit drinking for six months once, but first manic episode I was off the wagon again.

newly controversial opinion

dont smoke, ppl

its awful

I have no problem saying people shouldn’t smoke - it is terrible! But people with bipolar disorder are 2-3 times more likely to smoke. I’ve even seen claims of up to 60%! Not that that is an excuse, but it is harder (I hear - again, I’ve never tried to quit - perhaps that requires a vision of your future that I don’t have?)

for the last 5 years i've more or less stopped except when i drink, and i think part of the raging scary anxiety i get during hangovers is a result of suddenly chain-smoking rolls all night since i'm less used to the nicotine nowadays. i still wish i could maintain a steady low-ish roll-up habit tbh but the effects on my mental, maybe physical health are just getting too gnarly. can't promise right now that i'll never have another tho.

Watching two immediate relatives die horribly from smoking-related illness (one protracted, one shockingly quick) pretty decisively snuffed any lingering romantic appeal the notion may have ever had for me.

Just remember, kids:

http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_web/images/tobacco_ads/infants_children/school/large/school_03.jpg

I should have thought most people know someone or have a relative who've died horribly from a smoking-related illness, don't they?

I guess not since people continue to smoke. My dad's death was enough to make my brother quit cold turkey, thank god.

My uncle died from cancer. Aimless is right up thread to say the negatives outweigh the good. A pack a day is 12-15 bucks which could be money used for food. I would never recommend anyone smoke but as mentioned those with bipolar (and mental illness in general tbh) benefit from it relaxation wise. Hell Lynch smokes like a chimney and he clearly has had to work on toxic anger issues. It can feel meditative. I’m not big on vapes tho as an alternative, unlsss I’d actually reduces your smoking. My buddy says he used to smoke 40 a day but replaced it with a vape. He puffs it 24-7 with tobacco cartridges. Dunno, why not just smoke a cigarette then.

Unless it **

Yeah, my message for the teens comes from a place of concern, not judgment. Do as thou wilt (as long as what thou wilt ain't blown all up in my face).

Smoking is grim and it makes you smell bad (although the smell of fresh smoke is often quite nice imo) but it does look cool when photographed

My mum was diagnosed with emphysema in her mid-40s which is insanely young (she’s 52 now) & I guess I wish she would quit because the decline is gonna be really steep and awful in what would otherwise be good years of her life. otoh tho her dad spent the end of his life breathing thru a tube so she knows what’s what - he had Alzheimer’s and died of a heart attack tbf, it’s not like the other available deaths are so much better than COPD & cancer

Only an idiot would be opposed to the “ban” on smoking in public places but I’m not at all a militant anti-smoker, I love to sit in a beer garden with my friend while he smokes his pipe (except for some tobaccos which are fuckin harsh and acrid, I promise you there’s nothing performative about my coughing then)

I smoke a cig a day after my dinner wine and for the moment have no intention of giving up this pleasure. I can imagine a time when I will, though.

^ moderation expert. My friend also does this, tho she rolls up the equivalent of 4 cigs into one. I admire your self regulation

My granny, who smoked more cigs than anyone I've ever known in my life, more or less went blind and sundry relations and friends have died of sundry cancers. I can't really pin my dad's death on smoking as he also drank too much, had a terrible diet and worked in nuclear power stations - early on, before they knew the dangers, or else they did know the dangers but didn't tell the workers, which seems more likely. The family is inclined to blame the nuclear industry btw.

Yeah my grandad’s emphysema likely had as much to do with his job in a paint factory as with smoking

I guess not since people continue to smoke. My dad's death was enough to make my brother quit cold turkey, thank god.

― Gladys McFlatus (Old Lunch)

my mom's been trying to quit smoking for basically as long as i've been alive. i was never particularly tempted to smoke cigarettes.

amazing how many pundits think the manager doesn't matter LEAVE IT JIM THEY'RE NOT WORTH IT

wrong thread loooool

Haha what are the odds? This guy on crutches just came and sat down at the next table to me in the beer garden and he asked the two ladies on the other side, who are drinking tea and have a bowl of sweet potato fries, “will it bother you if I smoke?” & they said “frankly yes, but this is your area so it wouldn’t be fair for us to complain so go ahead” - I offered to switch tables with him so there would be a buffer zone between them & him, it was a very positive interaction all round although I think it was slightly guilt trippy for the women to say that. Funny that it happened minutes after the exchange itt tho!

Honestly anyone in crutches should get some slack.

mad controversial

Well they acknowledged that they were in no position to be cutting slack, as he’s smoking in the only place he’s allowed to whereas they chose to sit out here because it’s sunny! Which is why I found it just slightly dickish to register their displeasure

My uncle died very rapidly from lung cancer 2 years ago at 53 and my grandad had part of his lung removed due to lung cancer in his 60s, he was a very heavy smoker though, 60+ a day.

I've mostly quit apart from when drinking for years now, and even managed to quit that for a bit and just vaped or used a nicotine spray, but since my wife got cancer (not smoking related) I've stopped trying not to smoke when I drink. I dunno if it's just a very slow version of suicide or just because it's been brought very clear that we are all going to die anyway so fuck it, whichever way you die it's probably going to suck. This might be temporary as I come to terms with it, I might try to go back to vaping I dunno. Do worry about secondary smoke, I might not give a shit about my health but I don't really need to be hurting other people.

As a parent of 12 and 14 y/o im so hyper pissed off about the likely end results of the current juul vape o rama its playing out like some cartoon level evil capitalism shit.

Downtown Vancouver has gas stations eg. corner of davie & burrard st. Sorry to be so local but this stuff is overstated perhaps by people with no car who don't recall where gas stations are because they don't use them?

― everything, Thursday, June 14, 2018 11:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya i must've blocked that from my memory

i remember passing by it a lot when we would go to la bodega

i don't drive in vancouver, but having a car in la has kinda got me thinking of buying one in vancouver now

these grammarly ads are driving me crazy

I smoke a cig a day after my dinner wine and for the moment have no intention of giving up this pleasure. I can imagine a time when I will, though.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, June 15, 2018 8:29 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ moderation expert. My friend also does this, tho she rolls up the equivalent of 4 cigs into one. I admire your self regulation

― sunburst N snowblind (Ross), Friday, June 15, 2018 8:34 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FYI, the cardiovascular risk imparted by smoking one cigarette a day is thought to be about 40-50% of that incurred by smoking a pack per day, not 1/20th as you might expect. (it is about 1/20th for lung cancer.) and you’re a lot more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than cancer

i'm sure that has been rebutted many times, but WHAT IF autocorrect was reinforcing incorrect spelling by young children?

anecdotal PROOF:

my niece texts me pretty often. she's still learning how to spell. this happened twice within 5 minutes of conversation:

Water are you doing
Wate

ime, after you fuck up spelling on an iphone a few times in a row, it adapts to the new spelling. and in fact, sometimes it even starts "correcting" your words to the misspelled version. i know this well with "fuck", which is permanently autocorrected to "duck" on my phone. there was also a particularly period of YEARS with my old iphone where it kept autocorrecting I'm to I'd.

anyway, i think she knows that she's looking for "what", or at least that something is off, so i'm not too worried about that. but how many other words has this happened to, and how many weird autocorrections slipped through the crack that she didn't notice?

duck this, i'd out of here

"fuck" is permanently autocorrected to "duck" on everyone's iphone! nanny state

but how will my niece ever learn how to spell it correctly!?

>:-o

Ducking tankers

iPhone autocorrect and predictive text is way shittier than android ones

No worries, I expect writing to fade as a common skill within the next generation or so, at which point the concomitant ability to spell correctly will have little real utility. You damn well better learn your emoji between now and then, though.