Smoking is bad… MMmmkay?

Anyone who knows me for more than….. 5 minutes, offline, knows I’m a smoker. I smoke about… a pack, pack-and-a-half a day. Ya know what? I FUCKING LOVE IT! I really do. I love the taste, I love the experience, I love doing stupid little smoke tricks. It relaxes me, wakes me up, puts me to sleep. It’s a good friend…. albeit one that “slowly kills me”. Well, we’ve all got our bad sides. Thing is… my smoking was rarely an issue a few (like 5-6) years ago. It was, to some, a minor annoyance in the world. No biggie. But, my friends, this has gotten horribly fucked. It’s time to launch an MF Missile at all this anti-smoking rhetoric! Bring it on, fuckholes!

In researching on behalf of this article, I had some difficulty pulling up the information I needed. This isn’t because said information (and I’m talking about misinterpreted “statistics” about smoking, etc) is non-existent, it’s because the side in opposition (i.e. the anti-smoking gestapo) has gone to great lengths to repress the information. Thankfully, I had caught a few very important minutes of Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit” show on Showtime once that addressed the whole anti-smoking issue. Specifically, the claims being made daily about second-hand smoke (or ETS - Environmental Tobacco Smoke). I’ve long thought that any non-smokers who had somehow acquired a smoking-related health issue would be those who’ve either A) Lived with a long-term spouse who smoked an ungodly amount of cigarettes for some odd 40+ years or B) Had been living in highly polluted areas (i.e. LA, NYC, Hong Kong, etc). I had no hard facts to back up the validity of my claims but, logically, it made sense to me. With what very little I caught from that P&T episode was of much use to me in researching where the fine line of statistical, scientific proof and complete bullshit had been blurred beyond recognition. All I knew was there was much ado about the EPA’s report on ETS that was published back in January of 1993. So, my research started there.

For reference purposes, much of what I will be quoting and using as a launchpad for the MF Missile has been taken from this link: http://www.flash.net/~gallow/epa.html. I will grant you that the aforementioned link is definitely from a biased standpoint. However, they quote from every side of the story to come up w/their conclusions, and I have never purported to be unbiased myself. On the dickheaded side of things… if the EPA used bias in a scientific report (a big no-no), I should be able to use the opposite side’s bias in debunking their bullshit factory.

Let’s suppose, just for one goddamned minute, that the EPA was full of complete and utter bullshit while compiling their ETS report. Just for shits and giggles - let’s suppose there’s been absolutely no hardcore evidence to support the idea that second-hand smoke does anything more harmful to someone than a minor annoyance. Would you all still sneer, and quote stupid little facts clipped from a newspaper at me while I walk the streets and smoke? Would you still be 100% in favor of all-non-smoking restaurants and bars, forcing us to go outside in the freezing cold or burning heat just to enjoy a quick cigarette? Before you non-smoking “I love my nice, pink lungs” non-smokers go yelling “HELL YES, I HATE CIGARETTE SMOKE!” I want you to realize something. No one ever tells you that you can’t drive your car down any public road you choose at any time of night. The media isn’t screaming “don’t have that child! children just clog up an already heavily over-populated world!” at you. And, you’ll hear nary a complaint at bars that “there’s too many drunks in here”. Yet, all of those things can have (and have had) serious detrimental effects on both the people engaged in the activity, and those who are effectively little more than innocent bystanders.

One example - I don’t like drunk people. I really don’t. If I’m drunk (a rarity, as many who know me can attest to), and there’s another drunk around me - I sure hope he’s a friendly (but not too friendly) drunk, or that she doesn’t like groping random strangers with piercings in their face. I’m rarely lucky on either account, however. And, I get mean-as-fuck drunk jock-type guys, groping and yelling at everyone around them and being a general annoyance. They love to assume that simply everyone around them is as amused by their drunken antics as they are. Often worse yet, I’ve found myself in the position of trying to shove away and ward off a very touchy-feely “I’m drunk and need to grab someone’s crotch” woman. That puts me in the middle of a strange moral/sexual crossroad. On the one hand.. who doesn’t like gettin’ a good crotch grab? On the other.. I really can’t, in good conscience, let an inebriated woman do things to me that I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t do if she were fully sober. I know some people will say “no one does things drunk they wouldn’t do sober - they’ll just do it without shame”. I don’t buy that magazine. I just safely assume that if they’re drunk - they’ve no idea what they’re doing and I’m all the worse if I encourage or act on that behavior. This bloated paragraph has a point to it. If I really want to avoid drunk people - I avoid drunk places. Bars, parties, weird social gatherings, etc. I don’t really avoid those things that often, though, because there’s an amusement in some drunks - and in the casually “tossed” folk, there’s a nice little kinship that I can enjoy the company of. If there’s one too many drunken jock assholes… well, I’m outta that place faster than you can say “c’mon boys - let’s play grab-ass with Officer Maloy!”. In some ways, I’m a bit like Dante from Clerks. I would almost rather shit my pants than upset the natural order of the people around me. If someone’s doing something I find extremely annoying, I try to take a temporary leave from the situation. If I’m unable to do that - I’ll ask them to stop. If they won’t stop… I have no choice but to either put up with it, or take permanent leave from the situation. I wouldn’t purport to be the perfect human being - but I do think that if you don’t like something, either change it, or get away from it. Ergo… if I don’t like the drunks, but where I’m at requires drunks (i.e. a bar), I’ll just put up with it. If you don’t like smoking - don’t go near it - or you’ll just have to fuckin’ put up with it.

Not in this culture. Oh no, certainly not. “Putting up” with something? Tolerance over personal convenience? Jesus, that’d be like letting women decide on their own if they can abort children. Why, that’d even by like.. letting children decide on their own what drugs will do to them. God, in a society like that, we might even (shudder to think) have to “put up” with having sex and violence on TV stations that our beloved children might wake up in the middle of the night and tune into. No, no… we can’t “put up” with anything. We can’t just let some people live their fucking lives in peace, we have to cater to every namby-pamby little fuckhead with a prayer book and a bone to pick. Uptight pussies with nothing better to do than tell other people how their lives should be lead - that’s what runs this fuckin’ country. So, it stands to reason that small annoyances like smoking (and, if we’re still just assuming that second-hand smoke is effectively harmless - it would only be a small annoyance to your nostrils) would be stomped into submission and stones will be cast like a witch trial in hyperdrive.

Enough with the assumptions, let’s chomp at the bit. Get ready, TheTruth.com, for this little nugget.

There has never been any reliable scientific evidence to conclude that second-hand smoke does harm to the lungs, and least of all, that there’s any direct correlation between second-hand smoke and lung cancer.

There, it’s been said. I feel better now. So, where’s the proof. Let’s start with the quotes:

Larry Elder (talk show host): “Many scientists (who are honest, who have integrity) will tell you that while they personally may abhor smoking, the science is just not there for this bogus second-hand smoke stuff… it’s just not there”

Elizabeth Whelan Sci D MPH (President/Founder, American Council on Science and Health): “There are those who maintain that second-hand smoke is a major cause of Cancer, of Heart Disease… of many underlying chronic conditions. And, the evidence on that is extremely scanty”

Quoted from the U.S. Federal Court Decision regarding the EPA’s report: “The EPA’s procedural failure constitutes a violation of the law”…..”The EPA ‘cherry-picked’ it’s data”….”EPA deviated from acceptable scientific procedure to ensure a preordained outcome.”

Yeah, the U.S. Feds got in on the EPA lambasting. I’m sure there’s some dillhole reading this right now, thinking “I’ve seen ‘insider’, I know all about the super-evil Big Tobacco companies ganging up on scientists, lawmakers, courts, etc. to get their cancer sticks out into the public. This is all a P.R. push from Philip Morris et al”. I’m not one to stick up for corporate assholes who almost literally rape and pillage their way to the top. But, let’s leave big tobacco out of this for now. I’ll get back to them in a bit, maybe. I think it’s just as bad for one company to lie about the safety of a product as it is for another company (or agency, in this case) to lie in the other direction about it’s detrimental effects. Inside the Gov’t was a lone soldier named Thomas J. Bliley Jr. who had first noticed the inconsistencies in the EPAs report. He states his reasons for questioning the report right in the first paragraph of his lengthy paper about the EPAs inappropriate “scientific discoveries”. (taken from the full text, found here.)

“The EPA/HHS representatives made clear at their January press conference that they hoped that the EPA report would lead to additional smoking restrictions by private entities as well as by government at all levels. If the conclusions of the report are valid, that hope is certainly understandable. At the same time, however, if the claims made in the report are invalid, as appears to be the case, the likely consequence will be additional unjustified harassment of and discrimination against smokers — a consequence that received little attention at the January press conference. ”

I agree wholeheartedly. And, here we are 10 years later - and I stand amongst a shrinking few as a discriminated smoker. I don’t blame the non-smokers, though. Not entirely. Hell, if I could prove that exposure to drunken assholes (and high-school sports like football) caused detrimental effects to one’s brain… I’d be one happy little bitch. In any case, I understand the motivation. Non-smokers think I’m killing them, and I’m just gonna keep on doing it. I’m part of a permanent outplacement, my department is being downsized… take your pick.

I do, however, blame the EPA. TheTruth.com. Anyone who goes out of their way to come up to me on the streets and tell me in great detail how I’m killing everyone around me, and Disney - because there’s only TWO FUCKING SMOKING AREAS IN AN OUTSIDE PARK THAT’S BIGGER THAN MOST SMALL TOWNS IN COLORADO! It’s shit like that which make this whole thing just.. fucking ridiculous.

Where, you might ask, do I get off yelling at TheTruth.com? After all, they’re just trying to prevent people from smoking - something that’s scientifically been shown to have harsh effects on one’s health. That’s just it, though. If we all know that smoking is bad, and we do ALL know this, then why beat a dead horse? Seriously, think about that. Who walks around yelling “Cell phones can be used to reach people, without requiring a landline!” or “Cars burn gasoline to fuel engines that turn around a bunch of times and then result in making their wheels move!” We, as a conscious public, already know all of this shit. In fact, I’d venture to say more people know that “smoking is bad, mmkay?” than those who know what the fuck “that whole internet thing is all about”. It’s fucking public knowledge. It’s well-known. Ask the kids of today - “is smoking a fun, yummy idea?” and they’ll say “no!”. Yay! You won! Now, shut the fuck up, please. Give us back our airwaves - and, for god’s sake - leave me the fuck alone for smoking, already!

When I was a kid, I knew smoking was bad. That was in the 80s. That was 15-20 years ago, for fuck’s sake. When I started smoking, I knew the fucking risks. When I was 10 years old, and I was suspended from school (unrelated story, not gonna go into it right now) - I stayed at my grandfather’s apartment. While he babysat me, I was also asked on behalf of my family to make sure he didn’t smoke. I KNEW ALL ABOUT SMOKING’S BAD EFFECTS. No one, and I mean no one throughout “developed countries” in my generation can claim they never knew smoking was bad for them. But, all of this just scratches at the surface of the bigger issue: discrimination. Or, worse yet, such unabashed cruelty towards smoking in general that people like me are made out to be fucking idiots because people actually think we don’t know that smoking is bad. Like I’m the one guy left in the U.S. (much less Orange County) who’s completely unaware that smoking is bad for him.

These fuckin’ truth motherfuckers…. man, I want to hurt them badly. I’d love to strap ‘em all down to chairs and light up a pack’s worth of cigarettes, shove ‘em in their fuckin’ mouths, light ‘em and yell “NOW SMOKE, MOTHERFUCKER! SMOKE!” while plugging up their nostrils. Why? Cause I’m evil like that. But, moreso, because they’re monumental dickheads. They litter the streets with FUCKING BODYBAGS, they have people crawl out of the gutters wearing gigantic rat costumes that disrupt everyone’s walking habits, they have babies crying, show pictures of disfigured babies to people eating lunch. That’s some horrid shit. Why fuck with people like that? What do you gain? Fuckin’ little bitches.

All this anti-smoking advertising is raising a bunch of ill-informed children, as well. An interesting rant I’d read on another site touched on a subject that I thought of myself, but they had a great anecdotal story to go with it. You see, if we keep telling children that smoking is so uber-bad that you light up and BOOM! CANCER! - they’re going to see through your horseshit blanket. They’ll meet motherfuckers like me, who’ve been smoking for 8+ years and look no different (health-wise) than non-smokers. They’ll find your lie. They might even fall into the mistake of assuming the “if A = B, then C = B, and D = B” equation relates to drugs and the like. For instance, an adult telling a child “Marijuana kills you instantly! One pack of cigarettes will give you Cancer!”. The child would see someone smoke weed, and not see them kiel over and die. A week later, they may see a Cigarette smoker take a puff from a cigarette, then jog for a while. Suddenly, all these evil tales about drugs and cigarettes and alcohol aren’t so bad anymore. The anecdote I read was about a girl known to the author - she was always told that marijuana was highly addictive, and incredibly dangerous, as was heroin! After discovering through her curious friends that neither was true about marijuana - she became a heroin junkie and died of an overdose about 10 years later. Why? Because she was lied to about marijuana, she assumed she was lied to about heroin. Again, god forbid we tell our kids the *gasp* TRUTH about anything. If kids happen to read this, I’ll break all the drugs down for you, right here:

Alcohol Beer tastes like urine. Non-alcoholic (near-beer) beer tastes like watered-down urine. If you drink enough of it, you’ll feel woozy and happy, and get the idea that everyone’s really into whatever you’re doing and/or saying. If you drink too much, you’ll throw up and the next morning, you’ll have a headache and tummy ache that could be cured by a number of things - just ask around, everyone’s got their own cure (kinda like hiccups, really). Hard alcohol also tastes pretty bad. It’ll even hurt your throat. But, you can mix it with fun things (like Kool-Aid) and make it taste… kinda good. You only need it to make it paste your taste buds; keep drinking until you get to the aforementioned “funny feeling”. Don’t drink a whole bunch all the time, because then you’ll be a smelly drunk or a “lush”, and no one likes a person who can’t hold their alcohol. A few notes: The higher the proof, the less you’ll need to get drunk. This is why hard alcohol exists. Oh, and when someone comes up to you at a party and says “try this” - DON’T. Especially if the bottle says “EverClear” on it.

Cigarettes If you’re going to smoke, try Marlboro Reds. If you can’t take the taste/feeling, give it up - you’re not a smoker. Good try though. If you enjoy that taste/feeling (as I have since my first one, and continue to this day to enjoy), then you’ll be lambasted by every asshole with an opinion and a desire to “never touch those dirty cigarettes”. Ignore them, or blow smoke in their face - it’s fun. Oh, and, eventually (like, give it 10-15 years) you might wanna quit, just in case. After you’ve stopped smoking for about 3-5 years, your body goes back to almost normal and you can do what you want with it from that point on.

Marijuana If you hated the sting from cigarettes, you’re really gonna hate the sting from weed. Try getting a joint if you possibly can - it’s really smooth, and it’ll get you a lot higher, quicker. Plus, it just feels more natural. If you start pulling out bongs and zongs and pipes and hookahs just to unwind after school/work, you’re working too damned hard for a drug. Just puff a joint and grab something to munch on. Oh, and beware of the cotton-mouth, that’s a bitch. Get some water, cause you don’t want your belly getting full from soda, cause you’ll have no room for those munchies you crave. The effects are basically just like watching the funniest part of the funniest movie you’re ever seen - for about an hour or two (depends on the person). You’ll laugh like a silly bitch the first few times (that is, if you can get high your first time, most people can’t - don’t give up though, keep on trying!) and you’ll probably enjoy the experience. Marijuana is called the “gateway drug” because after you’ve done it, the gateway to other drugs opens up. Bullshit. Marijuana alone’s never killed anyone, so that’s why it’s almost every drug-user’s first drug. Once you figure out that DARE lied to you, the tendency is to trek on down to the next drug that crosses your path. That’s your call. Just, don’t worry about the health risks - there really aren’t any. Just don’t become one of those people who can’t go more than an hour without a bong-hit, you’ll just be annoying.

Acid/LSD I suggest everyone without pre-existing mental conditions try this out at least once. It’s a good time. Prepare to spend $5-7, and about 10 hours of your life on one “hit” (also known as a “tab” - you’ll only need one). Make sure you “drop” (that is, to put the tab on your tongue) the acid at home, or your friend’s house. You’ll be seeing/hearing a lot of weird shit - it’s all in your mind, and it’s a whole lot of fun. Like saturday morning cartoons at your own private imax 3D screen. Just make sure there’s no parents around, and that you’ve no obligations for the next 36 hours. Believe me, you don’t wanna work the next morning, cause you’ll be sitting on the floor of your local Circle K trying to figure out complex mathematical calculations as they relate to the universe around you, all the while you’re supposed to be stocking the cooler w/Pepsi bottles and you don’t know why everyone’s looking at you funny (true story, happened to me). You can’t get addicted to LSD because if you take it one night, you’ve gotta take twice as much the next night, twice as much the night after that, and the night after that… you’re immune. It’ll take about 60 hours to get out of your system before you can drop again.

Shrooms Sadly, easier to come by than acid, this is what grows on cow shit. If you can get past that, you’ll then need to figure out how to get past the taste. Easiest way is to grind the shit up in a coffee grinder and pour it into a glass of orange juice. Hold your nose and CHUG! See the above description about acid for further instructions on what to do after that.

Ecstacy Make sure you’re really comfortable with the people around you before you do this. It will make you wanna rub every part of their body and have them rub you… for many many hours. So, if you’re at a hairy, ugly, old dudes convention and you’re a 19 year old hottie with big ol’ pert boobs - you’re in for a big, hairy, sweaty surprise. Not good. Other than that, just don’t do this all the time, and for the sake of mankind - DON’T USE ECSTACY AS AN EXCUSE TO BECOME A RAVER! Remember kids, Drugs do not equal a good excuse for a social group - how do you think we got stuck with all these fuckin’ hippies?

Speed/Crystal Meth/Tweak Just don’t bother with this one. When you sniff this shit up, it’ll burn like a son-of-a-bitch and that’s when little gnomes crawl inside your head and hit the “overdrive” button. Suddenly, you’re sped up to about 20x the speed of everyone and everything around you, and it’s really annoying because nothing can keep up with you. With continued usage on women - it’ll turn those nice, young, pert boobs into old, saggy tits that feel akin to sand poured into the bottom of a smelly old sock. I’m not kidding. It’s nasty shit. And, there’s a nice surprise for continued usage in Men… two words: PENILE SHRINKAGE

Ketamine/Special K If you’ve ever thought “I wonder what it’d be like to ingest 10 shots of 180 Proof alcohol all at once, and not taste it - but instead be REALLY fuckin’ drunk for about 30 mins” then try Special K. You sniff this up, it’ll sting a wee bit, and a few mins. later you’ll be treated to the wonderful delights of your nasal mucous running down your throat. Resist the urge to swallow, that just bring this horrid tasting shit into your mouth - let it drip down into your throat, and drink it down w/Kool-Aid if you must. About 5 mins. after you snort the K, you’ll fall on the floor and find it extremely difficult to move, much like the whole 10-shots-all-at-once analogy from earlier. About 20-30 minutes later, it’ll have worn off, and you’ll be okay to drive home. If you do a whole lot of Special K all at once, you’ll get what’s referred to as a “K-hole”. If you’ve ever seen “Being John Malkovich” - it’s a lot like that. Only, you’re inside your own head, looking out, but you’ve no way of controlling anything, and you just sit/lay/crouch there in a stasis until it wears off. This could be good or bad, that’s kinda all up to you.

Cocaine Not a good thing to mess with, really. If you’re really experimental, and you’ve just GOTTA try everything - only do a little bit. While I’ve not personally tried it, apparently it’s like Special K, Tweak, and Heroin all rolled up into one really expensive white powder that also shrinks your dick, turns you into an asshole, and could either make or break your social life (it really depends on if you’re in a band or not, pretty much). HIGHLY ADDICTIVE, so watch out, no one likes a cokehead - and fewer like having to suck old men off just to get more of it.

Heroine I would strongly, highly, recommend you take a pass on this one. It’s the extreme of everything. Probably the most addictive drug in the world (some say smoking is moreso, but I’ve never seen a dopesick, vomiting “I’m trying to quit” smoker). It’s also apparently the single greatest 30 minutes of your life. So good, in fact, that life without heroine is dull and boring in comparison (or so I’ve heard, I won’t touch this shit). You don’t have to inject it into your veins - but do you really wanna swallow a wad of toilet paper or put up with the stench of burning heroine? Face it - any form you get this shit into your body through is just bad times all around. Sorry, ya can’t have it all. But, there’s always weed :)

Crack I don’t know much about crack, except that it’s cocaine and baking soda… and some other shit. Ya never really know. The “best” crack comes from Harlem, where it was originated. Beyond that.. just don’t do crack. I’ve smelled the shit and… well, I think I’d prefer sleeping next to a rotting corpse frankly. Nothing’s going to fry your brain, kill your social life, knock out your teeth, and fuck up every last inch of your body (and wallet) quite like crack. Again, don’t even bother with it. Good luck getting your friends to keep a straight face (and optionally NOT smack the shit out of you) once you say “Hey! I did crack!”.

Creative Drugs Whippids, Spray Paint, Robo-trippin’ and shit like that is just pathetic. If you can’t score any real drugs, alcohol, or anything that’ll fuck you up… just watch some TV or something. If you really need a buzz - have your friend beat the living shit out of you. It’ll certainly be better for you than shooting glossy-black spray paint up in your brain and thinking “Hey.. this is kinda….” (THUD! you hit the floor).

That was kinda fun. I’m not as pissed anymore. I really feel like I’ve performed a big public service now. You’re welcome. I’m tired now, I’m done with all this bullshit about anti-smoking ads. Just.. if you see a smoker - realize that THEY KNOW it’s bad, don’t bother them. Don’t avoid them. Just.. put up with it, shut up about it, change the channel when TheTruth.com starts bugging helpless street merchants and maybe, just maybe, when the guys in black coats come to get you and your rights as a citizen, you’ll get a good stroke of karma as Bubba decides your ass just ain’t his style.

Goodnight.

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