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Get off the Killer Weed ASAP
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Stoney
Posts: 132
Joined: Nov. 6 2009
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 Get off the Killer Weed ASAP
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Hello All,
I don't want to become a nag or a crazy person, so will be my one and only post on this subject. I am going to lose my father to cancer due to smoking. This is close to the lowest point in my life, and it all could have been avoided. I am furious that he smoked, that I smoke, that the whole family smokes, that I was addicted to this crap almost from birth, that cigarrettes even exist in our societies, that the industry does all it can to keep us addicted and to grab new customers (see the movie "The Insider.") And what do they do when first world societies reject their product and numerous people stop smoking or die off? They move to the third world and open up new markets for their poison there.
My father has lung cancer and bone cancer and I am on my way to Canada next week basically to say goodbye. There is no way to know how long he will be with us before this industry claims another victim.
Yes, we are all responsible for our own actions, I have heard all the arguements (usually from people who never developed the addiction or who weren't addicted to tobacco from birth without their consent) Nonetheless, there is no positive benefit from tobacco products and the only reason that Governments continue to allow this murderous product to exist is to line their pockets with tax dollars.
As for the families and owners of tabacco plantations and cigarrette factories - I honestly hope there is a special "HELL" for these folks.
PLEASE, IF YOU SMOKE OR KNOW SOMEONE WHO SMOKES - STOP NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! GET YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND LOVED ONES TO STOP BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! BE A POSITIVE EXAMPLE TO YOUR CHILDREN INSTEAD OF PASSING THIS HORRIBLE ADDICTION ON TO THEM! STOP NOW!
Once someone you love has cancer you are going to feel guilty that you didn't do more to get them to stop. DON'T WAIT! DO IT NOW!
Peace,
Stoney
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Mar. 11 2010 9:46:30
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to Arturo)
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quote:
My father and older brother both died from complications due to smoking. It's awful!
Arturo,
There is no direct way of telling whether you get a terminal illness due to smoking or not.
It's all done by statistics.
LOTS of older people die painfully from lots of stuff whether they have smoked or not.
ATM it's an open advertisement in the political/medical lobby that if you get lung cancer and are a smoker, then the smoking caused it.
If you were a non smoker, then it was breathing other people's smoke.
If you had never been in a position to ever breath in other people's smoke...then they scratch their heads and that data basically gets put in the dustbin as random effects interfering with the message.
All my adult life I've heard that the contraceptive pill for women could lead to higher mortality due to more risk of heart attack, stroke or even cancer.
Just now, in 2010 an Aberdeen research group have published a report based on a 40 year study that women who have taken the pill generally live longer and have fewer heart attacks, strokes and incidents of cancer than those who have not.
Personally and at the end of the day, I can't put my life on hold waiting for the researchers to publish their latest views and opinions.
quote:
He quit 20 years before he died.
Well there you go...
If you've smoked for a considerable amount of time then you're screwed anyway.
Also do I really want to live till 90?
(Great stuff and fun and games to look forward to, folks!)
You've got to answer that question yourself.
At the end of the day you are gonna die of SOMETHING.
No one has ever died of NOTHING.
But believe it or not...you are DEFINITELY gonna die...no matter what!
I think after about 60 it doesn't really make that much of a difference what you die of, personally speaking...
You just got to get on with it IMO.
cheers,
Ron
PS: Stoney...Of course I'm sorry about your Dad and your family...
So are you telling me that you have now quit?
You've had the last one.
That's it.
Finito?
Or have you still got a pack around?
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Date Mar. 12 2010 10:40:50
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Stoney
Posts: 132
Joined: Nov. 6 2009
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to Stoney)
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I had my first stolen cigarrette at 8 years old. Never really stopped after that but I didn't hit the pack a day mark until I was 20.
This last summer I quit for 2 months and then fell back into bad habits. Luckily the guilt over going back on them has kept me down to about 5 to 10 a day since last summer with the odd bad day and a few nights out drinking with the boys.
So no, I haven't quit. As a matter of fact, I have programmed tomorrow to be my first non smoking day. Since I will be in Canada and staying with my folks, I can hardly smoke around my father (not to mention my mother who also suffers from breathing problems and has a pace maker - all thanks to cigarrettes) So I am going to have to make it stick this time.
On another note, between going out peacefully at 80 or being eaten alive at 55, 60, 65 or 70 by raging mutating cells that jump from one vital organ to another, I'd just as soon take the peaceful route. Sure, we all have to go some time but Cancer seems like something we'd all be better off avoiding.
And the damage from smoking doesn't necessarily have to be permanent. Ask anyone who has quit for even a month. They will tell you they feel much better, breathe easier and medical reports say you greatly decrease your chances of getting a smoking related disease with every year that passes.
I won't post on this theme again. Or maybe I will in one year if I am still not smoking. One way or another, by that time I will be down to one parent and I doubt I'll be the only one out of all our members to lose a family member to cigarrettes in that time.
Stoney
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Date Mar. 12 2010 12:18:23
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to Stoney)
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Stoney, smoking used to be my friend; it would help me through tough or boring times, and I enjoyed it very much. But 30 years on, my friend began to turn on me and cause me to worry that I might well be developing throat cancer--that constant cough, that "rat" in my throat when I awoke in the morning. My father had a business associate who had had his larynx removed due to throat cancer, and "spoke" in a weird whistle--I didn't want that, for sure. And the expense, the yellow fingers and teeth, the loss of stamina--my friend had turned on me, and it had to go.
Quit cold turkey one day, telling no one--we'd see how long it would take them to figure it out that I'd quit. Also abruptly replaced one habit with another--after dinner, instead of a cigaret, I leapt up from the table and took a hour bike ride every day. Sucked on the cap of a Flair pen when the urge got strong. Worst day was 3 days later--I filched a cigaret out of the open pack of a co-worker, twirled it around in my hand, then put it back into his pack. Best move I ever made. It's been 27 years now off the killer weed, and I've never looked back. The funny thing is--that leaving aside that all the bad and expensive downsides of smoking are gone--your life is exactly the same as it was before, but you just don't smoke any more. You don't become Jesus, or Einstein, or Paco; you are the same, but you just don't smoke any more. And that's pretty good.
runner
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Date Mar. 12 2010 12:38:13
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to at_leo_87)
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I don't want it to sound like I'm somehow defending smoking or questioning the health issues.
However I hate when things become hysterical, like the anti smoking campaign has.
Pub landlords and restaurateurs have willingly offered to have two physically separate rooms for those who wish to smoke and those who don't and other businesses (travel etc) have suggested perfectly reasonable alternatives.
But that has been rejected as not good enough.
Now hundreds of local and once popular pubs that have been going for decades have had to close due to declining business.
Reason has gone out the window, (much like the Global Warming issue IMO) and all we have left is quasi religious hysteria.
Now we have extremist groups campaigning for no smoking to be allowed outdoors as well.
It seems that tobacco smoke is now as toxic as Tabun and Sarin nerve gas.
Here in the UK, one of the arguments is the drain on the NHS.
Well..grossly fat people are also a drain on the NHS as well as making life misery for others when travelling on coaches, trains and planes, so why don't we ban fat people from public transport and certain places like fast food outlets for their own and the public good?
Every year, hill walkers and climbers have to be rescued from the Scottish Highlands here by the Mountain Rescue Service, involving tens of thousands of pounds each time in the cost of special helicopters and risking the lives of land teams and taking up intensive care beds in Hospitals...all because they thought they would "challenge" themselves by climbing despite Severe Weather Warnings being issued by the local authorities.
Perhaps we should ban these activities or at least prosecute those who behaved in a reckless way with no regard for themselves or others.
The latest potential hysteria ready to come up to the boil is to substantially raise the cost of alcohol in order to supposedly curb "binge" drinking amongst teenagers.
This will obviously raise the price for everyone across the board, including folk on a limited income etc, while I doubt if the teenage drinkers will even bother or give a toss, if their bottles of extra strong cider etc goes up by 20% or whatever.
Who are the clever people who think up these schemes? 
As I said, smoking is not advisable. People have been given the facts and it's up to them to make a choice. Young folk should be encouraged not to start.
Non smokers should have the right not to have to tolerate smokey environments.
That's sensible.
But we don't have sense here that I can see anyway, only hysteria and extremist groups leading the way forward.
cheers,
Ron
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Date Mar. 14 2010 10:12:07
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Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to johnguitars)
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quote:
I asked him if he wasn't pulling my leg and he gave me a week to live.
Wow John...
So if you had smoked for exactly a week more you would have been dead?
That's amazing!
Sounds like a really precise Doctor and really on top of his stuff!
BTW I hope you don't drink...
Alcohol is treated as a poison by the body....the body has no use for it whatsoever and it causes chemical malfunctions in practically every organ, most noticeably in brain function.
Even very modest amounts of any drink containing alcohol from the cheapest ciders to the very best wines can cause mouth, throat and stomach cancer.
Think about that the next time you have a beer or glass of wine!
However, maybe informed pressure groups within the United States as a First World country might persuade the Federal Government to ban the substance for the good of the populace? 
EDIT: John...I am genuinely really glad you gave up smoking and appreciate that you were not well at the time, so I'm not making fun at you, but my argument is about this 'blanket' ban being put on everyone by the anti smoking "evangelists".
I have been smoking for about 40 years now.
I'd probably like to give up, mainly due to cost and inconvenience, but find it extremely hard.
Probably because I quite enjoy smoking actually...
As folk have for the last few hundred years.
That's the other side of the coin that the evangelicists and legislators fail to mention or even consider.
Their theme (as non-smokers and ex-smokers) goes on assuming everybody really wants to quit... and their view is the only view that counts, even if they pay no more taxes or play more of a socially benificial role than myself.
Mommy knows best.
A while ago I contracted viral pneumonia.
It was starting to clear up when I got a Hospital appointment to check if it wasn't anything more serious.
During the test for lung capacity and oxygen transfer, the operator looked at the results and said (laughingly) "Are you sure you're in the right ward?".
I'm not sneering at fate or not being grateful, but quite frankly I'm not lacking breath or coughing or lacking energy.
To say I am would be false.
We are all sensible adults with the gift of reason and should be granted some sort of choice in a free society IMO.
If I die of lung cancer, then it will be because I continued smoking.
If haven given up smoking, I die of lung cancer, then it will be because I smoked in the first place.
In either case I will be past worrying.
cheers,
Ron
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Date Mar. 14 2010 13:07:48
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gato
Posts: 322
Joined: Jun. 9 2007
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to Stoney)
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I know this is going to sound crazy in light of this thread, but if you smoke you should stay away from methyl or phenol alcohol. That's it, unless you are taking a pharmacuetical. That's where people get in to trouble, and most don't know that.
I say it's too bad, but whether you choose to agree with me or dissagree, you've got to see that society has this grandeose idea that hard alcohol is ok and it's not ok. That means you've got to cut the coffee, and the alcoholic beverages properly to have it right, stop it with the street drugs, and over the counter remedies just to name a few; or anything you do in this light will complicate the matter, and that is what I believe.
Otherwise you can go around blaming every little thing under the sun for cancer and all of the health problems associated with meth and phenol. But it's your life, you've got to see it the way you prefer. If you don't get with it you're going to possibly die from all kinds of ailments, just like all the rest, and that is the hypocrisy that surrounds the whole issue, blame without taking this in to consideration. It's not for me to say however, but I just thought I would try to add that. Not too many people understand, and the whole of society is methyl and phenol crazed.
And if you didn't know that don't let me be the only one to tell you. Though not to many people will get with it and stop the nonsense, and there is no one but ourselves to blame for all of the trouble we get into. Cigarettes aside.
Gary
_____________________________
The Life Everlasting/Oswald Utopia
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Date Mar. 24 2010 22:00:34
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Ricardo
Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Get off the Killer Weed ASAP (in reply to ToddK)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ToddK
Stoney,
So sorry to hear about your dad. I can relate. My father is on life support this morning, and will probably pass before noon today. He's essentially gone. His brain is dead. His condition is due to alcohol. Another big killer.
I currently smoke too, but im deadset on quiting this year. Reading your post will certainly give me that much more strength to follow through.
So thank you for sharing this with us.
I would also say to all here, if you are a heavy drinker, dont underestimate the damage you are doing to your body. Mainly, your liver. It can kill you before you even know you're sick.
My father was only 63.
Your family will be in my prayers this Easter Stoney.
TK
Sorry brother. I know how it feels to lose a father too.
I don't smoke but I hang with smokers. I also like the smell having grown up with smokers in my house. My reasons for not smoking are strange, but I deliberately stopped before I got started. I still like the second hand smell, but here it is illegal in almost all public places to smoke. And yeah even on some outside Terrace kind of things I have seen. I also hang with heavy drinkers and am one myself nowadays. I deliberately stopped drinking for 2 weeks just to prove to myself I was not alcholic yet, but I can see how it could happen and does happen to lots of people.
But the only thing is, we are all gonna go sometime somehow. So, it is important to understand why we need to quit something. I look around and see so many people depressed, but these feelings will happen with or without bad things coming into your body. One would think artists who have such a great emotional outlet, would not need subtances, yet they are often the ones that get over come by them. Just having long hair I always get asked if I have or want to smoke weed.
ricardo
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Mar. 30 2010 6:04:50
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