Nicotine @ MindSay

I've been sick since Sunday, and hence not had a cigarette since then (insert applause here) and it's not been an issue since i could barely breathe the past few days let alone think of a cigarette. I always say im going to quit when I get sick cuz my asthma kicks my ass so much and smoking for damn sure doesnt hlep. but best believe when i start getting better im jonsing for a smoke!

My first cigarette was with my 'friend' aaron outside of school (bad ass!) and it gave me such a buzz i got dizzy haha i remember it like twas yesterday. All my friends smoke and the hot hang out spot for years and years was a chain smoking coffee shop. so hey, dive in right. it's funny how quickly u turn form a casual social smoker to a smoker that lights up everytime u get in the car, or have to go to work, on break, after work, after eating, before eating. you name it. smokers will justify just about anything to smoke one more cig.

my grandparents are smokers, for loooong long time. And how that they're getting up there in age i'm watching them have problem after problem related to their addiction. My grandpa as emphazma (haha i cant spell sorry) and CONTINUES to smoke, and my grandma is such an enabler she still smokes around him! they are falling apart, you would think this would be enough for me to be like fuck cigarettes!

I always say, oh ill cut down then quit gradually, but how easily thats forgotten. so here i am puttin my plan on 'paper' and commiting! 

It's a tad hypocritical of me to even be a smoker in the first place, i claim to love my earth mother and fight for her protection yet i light up all those chemicals in her home and exhale them all over her creations.. PSH! what a horrid hippie i am. Sorry.

I am but a work in progress.

      The warning against cigarette smoking issued by the US Surgeon General, and similar warnings aired on television, radio and print media elsewhere, is weak, effete and feeble. The warning states that: "Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health." The degree of danger by which cigarette smoking is dire to one's health is left unsaid.

      Call a spade a spade: Cigarette smoking kills. It's a filthy deadly habit, a real life terminator. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that five million people around the world  are expected to die this year (2006) from tobacco related illnesses.  Tobacco, the WHO report said, is known to to cause cancer of the lungs, vesicle, esophagus, larynx, mouth and throat, as well as causing chronic pulmonary disease, emphysema, bronchitis, stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. 

      As if this catalogue of illnesses was not enough, the WHO report says further that tobacco contributes to the developent of cataracts, pneumonia, acute myeloid leukemia, abdominal aortic aneurysm, stomach cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, and birth defects of babies born to cigarette smoking mothers.

      To stop smoking, however, is not simple and easy. Tobacco is more addictive than alcohol. Medical studies show that when a person puffs a cigarette, nicotine particles find their way to the lungs by inhalation. Nicotine is absorbed in the bloodstream like oxygen when a person breathes. It travels with the blood to the brain where it locks into certain receptor areas. This releases dopamine into the brain. Dopamine is the chemical that makes smokers feel a euphoric sensation. Smokers find it difficult to quit because they come to depend on the good feelings smoking cigarettes give them. By force of habit smokers find themselves reaching for a cigarette and lighting up a without thinking  about it.

      After years of mindless smoking, smokers begin to feel a persistent cough and pain in their throats. Their lungs ache along with their backsides, making it hard for them to swallow food and liquids and to sit up or lie down for extended periods because of the pain that wracks their bodies. Some find it hard to breathe, making it necessary to bore a hole on their throat where a breathing tube is inserted. Some undergo surgery to remove cancerous tissue from their lungs. Pain, agony, misery, medical and hospital expense for those who can afford it. For those who can't there's nothing more to look forward to.

      All these may sound pretty grim. But there's no future to smoking. Either a smoker quits for good (cold turkey, if all else fails) or make arrangements for his funeral. Smoking is not cool.That's why a cigarette is defined as tobacco wrapped in paper, with fire lit at one end and a fool at the other. 

      It's a wonder why cigarettes are allowed to be sold as a legitimate article of commerce. They're poison, a hazard to human life. Gas warefare is outlawed by nations. Why not cigars, cigarettes and tobacco?