The predecessor of cigarettes are cigars which are rolled-up tobacco leaves. For this reason people often believe that cigarettes consist of tobacco fibers. Among six hundred kinds of chemical additives they really do contain some tobacco. Tobacco, in turn, contains nicotine which is meant to protect the plant from pests, being toxic. Smokers also get in a toxic mood if they can’t smoke their nicotine. And when they do the venom gets directed towards themselves. This is called a win-win situation.
Smokers smoke cigarettes because otherwise they feel horrible. When smoking they feel guilty and stupid. This already mentioned win-win situation characterises the whole phenomenon of smoking such as finances. Cigarettes are expensive so if you are rich you can show off. As a poor smoker you will still smoke thereby emulating the rich. For the broke this has the added benefit of not having money to waste on unnecessary things. In Ireland, for example, a pack of cigarettes costs 13 Euros, so if you’re Irish smoking one pack per day you spend 400 Euros per month. This adds up to 5000 Euros annually or a quarter of a million in fifty years. If you smoke two packs a day that’s a whopping half a million Euros saved from housing, food, clothing, holidays and other worthless luxuries. A couple can save as much as a million! And if you buy rolling tobacco you can put aside hundreds of thousands of that million demonstrating how economically advantageous smoking actually is.
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Some say that cigarettes are relaxing while others assert that they are stimulating. Such a wonderful panacea is really rare. You can light up when you don’t dare to contradict your boss, when you don’t know where to put your hands, when you want to hide the fact that you were hurt, when you don’t know the answer to something, when you want to pick someone up, when you don’t want to be picked up by someone. You can light up when you’re bored, when you’re sad, when you don’t care, when you are happy. In this last case you could also sing a happy little song but with your voice long having been gone from smoking it is fortunate that cigarettes are easy to obtain. Your hair can still light up when you light up a butt.
People smoke cigarettes because they are labeled deadly. If you are an adolescent that makes them awfully attractive. Adolescents smoke to appear adults while adults smoke because as adolescents they wanted to appear adults. Smoking is a real adult, mature behavior. According to some psychologists smoking is just an overextended suckling instinct but don’t tell that to the Marlboro Man. Poor Robert Norris lived all his 90 years in misery, without a smoke.
Wayne McLaren, on the other hand, did know a thing or two. True, he died at the age of 51 from lung cancer but at least he was a real Marlboro Man.
Cigarettes are called cigs, that rhymes with pigs and yes, smoking is dirty which makes it more attractive for some. Cigs can also demonstrate your class affiliation. Workers smoke because they are proud of their roots while artists smoke to express their individuality.
Cigarettes have a number of further advantages. They are very stinky thereby efficiently covering bad breath. Cigarette stench also comes in handy if you are a sewer cleaner or happen to own a skunk farm. Since it’s been made illegal to smoke in public buildings you have to go outside to get fresh air. Gasping and wheezing increases the amount of air that gets into your lungs while being outside in winter develops your cold tolerance enhancing your immune system.
Cigarettes turn your skin grey and make you wheeze whereby you can appear older and wiser. While getting used to smoking the bad taste excercises your willpower. After a while smoking enlarges your musical repertoire in the morning. You will also have teeth nice and yellow, and hair smelling good so you’ll be more sexually attractive. Too bad that bald people cannot enjoy this last blessing of cigarettes.
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Although in the so-called developed world the proportion of smokers is decreasing, this is more than made up by the new smokers of the third world. The role of tobacco industry is substantial. Beside factory workers, it gives employment to farmers, doctors, organ trafficers and undertakers. Smoking increases GDP so you cannot lock tobacco factories while their owners cannot be locked up as they are rich people.
Cigs are sexy which is needed as they cause impotence decreasing overpopulation. Children of smoking women are mentally slower so they have a better chance of getting public administration jobs. Cigarettes also improve your chance of getting disabled benefits thereby being a source of income.
Non-smokers are proud of not having the habit, although they also smoke in a passive way. And they also get toxic when you smoke in their presence. So cigs can be used to make them mad, they deserve it, the low-life pigs who have all that undeserved extra money to spend.
Quitting smoking is allegedly very hard. This belief is held most strongly by muscular, macho men who are proud of enduring pain and discomfort. Also tough girls who do everything differently from plain citizens except whining about not being able to quit. Getting to be a smoker takes time; you begin by experimenting, then one day you realize that you cannot live without your gasper. It’s like playing with a bear trap until it snaps onto your foot. I bet that if someone pulls a Kalashnikov on you and tells you to stop smoking you will, even though a bullet is more humanitarian than lung cancer. Fortunately cigs are nowadays properly equipped with filters. Filters do not lower the chance of getting lung cancer but smokers are luckily unaware of that fact. Another advantage of smoking is that it mostly damages inner organs that you cannot see. And the horror photos put on cig boxes can be covered with a handy special case.
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The progress of our civilization is demonstrated by a new invention that makes it even easier to consume your poisons. Vaping gets nicotine even more directly absorbed into your tissues without having to roll tobacco, ask for fire, step on the butt and other tiresome activities. Do not think of this as a back door trick of tobacco companies or the camouflaged death pipe of Darth Vader utilized to send more millions to the cancer ward. It is a new tool of self expression manifesting that the tobacco industry is still fully committed to discarding humanity. Do not despair; the death agony of Homo sapiens will eventually cease to be replaced by the wonderful, glorious era of machines.