Can anyone tell me why smoking isn't stupid?

It can have a calming effect.

It does have a therapeutic effect on some mental illnesses. but I still tink it’s stupid.

Gets rid of some extra money you had weighing you down.

For David Sedaris, it helped him over some serious mental issues. But, he had to move to France to be able to enjoy fully his habit.

It is stupid because it slowly kills you, makes you addicted, costs you money and all it gives you in return is a shortlived excretion of chemicals in your brain.
It is like asphyxia when you have sex.

Nicotine counteracts of the negative effects of some of my medications. But I don’t inhale. ever try to inhale pipe smoke (the tobacco kind) Cigars are kind of a nice change outdoors. keeps bugs away. (And people who bug me)

I’ve never been a smoker personally, but always thought smokers looked “cool” when I was a kid. Not so much anymore of course, now they just look like they are wasting money and slowly killing themselves.

Because succeeding in your work environment hangs on the ability to have a smoke break with your boss.

It makes you look cool.

(FYI, yeah, I’m kidding).

Well it doesn’t have calming effect because it’s a stimulant. The only season it “calms” people is because they’re all hopped up because the need to feed to the addiction.

On the other hand. It is cool! You’re going die anyway. What is it gonna take off ten years? Those last ten years are gonna suck anyway. Do what you want in life and enjoy in while can.

@ragingloli The question is about “why smoking ISN’T stupid”

Web page with many wonderful statements to give smokers hope

Before you all take up smoking though I’d point out that the authors don’t provide any evidence for most of the claims and that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the web.

Beginning with WWII, tobacco was genetically engineered to have a calming effect. The US army passed out cigarettes to GIs on the frontline to help calm them down before going into battle. Cigarettes also soothe people with oral fixations.

A good book on this subject is Cigarettes are Sublime.

Nicotine has always had the paradoxical stimulating/calming effect. 1940s “Genetic engineering” seems suspect to me given that DNA wasn’t even discovered til 1953. You might as well say that humans “genetically engineered” dogs from wolves and corn from maize.

If you were a frontline G.I. in WW2, coffee and cigarettes helped make things just a bit more tolerable and promoted alertness in the face of exhaustion and sleep deprivation. I’m sure some that would otherwise have opposed smoking rationalized it as that little edge that might keep them alive through the fighting. Better to eventually die of lung problems in old age than be killed the day after tomorrow by being a bit too slow.

Some obese people are only able to lose weight if they continue to smoke cigarettes. It’s a tradeoff for them.

And if someone is obese… using cigarettes as a crutch is better than doing nothing.

Same can be said for alcoholics and drug addicts. It’s best to quit all addictive drugs, including tobacco…. but if tobacco is the crutch that can help someone get off something worse… then so be it.

For most people, it makes no sense to smoke cigarettes. But for some, it is logical and the relatively healthy choice for them.

Also, (and this is theoretical)... if someone’s been smoking cigarettes for 50 years, it would be dangerous for them to quit cold-turkey, at that point. They’d be better off either not quitting, or slowly tapering it off.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop, you’re correct that I picked the wrong term. I’m brain dead at the moment and can;t think of the right one.

Smoking is stupid, I say as I have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth so I can type. I can’t personally think of a good reason to smoke, other than people that smoke like to.

@knitfroggy I’m sorry, you may have missed the question. It was why smoking isn’t stupid. If you read some of the responses, there are actual medicinal benefits for nicotine. Some of the bad parts of inhaling (tar, etc) may be worth the benefits. Some of us who smoke pipes and cigars inhale very little and get the nicotine, admittedly less per puff than inhaled, but still get it. Apparently while skimming, you may have missed that.

I understood, I was just sayin’... :)

heh heh he

You want to die young and not have to experience the later crappy years of life.

It DOES have a calming effect but mainly because of two reasons. One you’re feeding an addiction which produces a calming effect (ask an addict of any kind of addiction). Two – and mainly – because it reduces the amount of oxygen you’re taking in for a few minutes. When you’re body is deprived of oxygen it automatically calms.

PS I smoke because it feels so damn good.

It might lower your BMI. And for a while it increases your dopamine levels in the brain and you can accomplish more. The trouble begins when people feel uneasy and bad when they don’t smoke. They have to smoke just to feel normal again. It’s a trap. They have to continue to smoke to feel like non-smokers feel all the time.