Fair Warning For Smokers

[martyd]

Fair Warning:
The US Surgeon General & Department of Health has not noticed this taxation, for health benefits, in Australia.

I was a Flight Nurse in 2017 and took a patient from Seattle to Melbourn, Australia.

This sign was in the Airport as well as in some stores in town.

At that time the US and Aussie Dollar were only about 1 dollar different.

I was in Melbourn for 5 days, I stayed after dropping off my patient.

During that time I started looking for smokers, out of curiosity.

I kept track, I saw 11 during the 5 days.

PS: A month earlier I took a patient from Oregon to Lahore, Pakistan and it was just the opposite, smokers everywhere.

Side Note: See 2 attached photos.
The hotel I stayed at in Pakistan had armed guard towers and if I wanted to go for a walk on the hotel grounds I had to wait to be accompanied by an armed escort.
They do love Arabian Horses.

 

[WardenRoss]

 

[Rustyt1953]

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DUCsULR6ODA[/ame]

 

[snubbyfan]

I gave up on cigarettes when I was 36 because the price was getting up to nearly a dollar a pack and they were making so many restrictions on where you could smoke. That was 'bout 24 years ago.
However, I will smoke an occasional cigar either in my back yard, front porch, while camping or at the beach.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I gave up on cigarettes when I was 36 because the price was getting up to nearly a dollar a pack and there were making so many restrictions on where you could smoke. That was 'bout 24 years ago.
However, I will smoke an occasional cigar either in my back yard, front porch or while camping.

The only photo of Snubby I've ever seen, was of a young Snubby on a bicycle!

Ivan

 

[MDF4]

There it is...end of the week... a good cigar with (at least) a 20 year bourbon on the Lanai. It's the simple things in life...

 

[snubbyfan]

The only photo of Snubby I've ever seen, was of a young Snubby on a bicycle!

Ivan

And I'm still not wearing a shirt....

 

[Golddollar]

Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) - YouTube

Later covered by Jimmy Dean and Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen.

 

[Cdog]

I smoked for 20 years, enjoyed about 5 of them. I quit 30 years ago this month.

At most Doctors, dentist, etc, I'm many times treated as "never smoked."

In 2015 I was at a pre-op meeting with the anesthesiologist and he said, "so Mr Bell I see you have copd, how are you feeling today?" I replied "I was feeling ok until I heard I had copd!" He had the right name, but the wrong person.

Marlboro in the box were about $2.50/carton when I started they were close to $20/carton when I quit.

 

[JohnRippert]

This coming Christmas will be 30 years since I quit smoking cigarettes. I smoked for 12 years. I could get a carton for $10 when I started and they were $4 a pack in the bars when I quit. I have been on my next door neighbor for years trying to get her to quit.

 

[DWalt]

Haven't had a puff for about 40 years. Wife couldn't stop, got lung cancer, and had half a lung removed about six years ago. OK so far.

When I was growing up in southern Ohio nearly everyone smoked. I used to get my cigarettes across the Ohio River in Greenup County Kentucky. No state cigarette tax there at the time and most brands were about $2 per carton. There was a large cigarette store located right at the Kentucky end of the bridge. I used to see people buying cigarettes by the case and taking them back to Ohio. Probably illegal, but I never heard about anyone getting tagged for cigarette smuggling.

 

[quikdraw67]

I quit in 2002. My last "sneak" was 9/11/2008. I remember the date since it was the last day before the new smoking rules went into effect in PA.

I was out with some coworkers at a bar. After a few drinks, I bummed a Marlboro Light off a coworker. Then later, another.

The next day, I was hung over. Not from the beer, but from the cigarettes.

Haven't had one since. The smell disgusts me.

 

[jaguargolf]

I hadn't smoked for twenty years and then down at the WTC at about 4 that afternoon, I split a broken Salem with some guy I didn't know.

 

[tlawler]

I smoked off and on through high school. Our school even had an outside smoking area where we would congregate for lunch. Smoked pretty heavily through six years in the Navy, then vowed to quit the week of my EAOS. I was 23 and that's been 38 years ago. Never looked back, and the smell still makes me nauseated.

 

[Beemerguy53]

I started smoking in 1968, at age 15, and quit cold-turkey just after my 30th birthday in the spring of 1983.

Almost exactly eight years later, on my 38th birthday in 1991, I had my first operation for laryngeal cancer. Over the next five months, I had two more operations, culminating in the partial amputation of my larynx. The operations changed my voice, and left me with a very limited range and a degree of hoarseness...but I am able to speak and I've lived far longer than anyone ever expected me to.

I watched smoking-related illnesses kill my father, my uncle, and more friends and acquaintances than I can count. I told both of my sons when they were growing up, that if I ever caught them smoking, it wouldn't be cancer that kills them...

Tobacco is the only consumer product that, when used as directed, harms the user. There is no safe dosage of any tobacco product. It has no medical or therapeutic benefit to the user. It's highly addictive. It drives up our health care costs, and it kills about 480,000 Americans annually. It's time to phase it out of our society, and if higher taxes on tobacco products help to achieve that goal, that's fine with me.

 

[Cdog]

I started smoking in 1968, at age 15, and quit cold-turkey just after my 30th birthday in the spring of 1983.

Almost exactly eight years later, on my 38th birthday in 1991, I had my first operation for laryngeal cancer. Over the next five months, I had two more operations, culminating in the partial amputation of my larynx. The operations changed my voice, and left me with a very limited range and a degree of hoarseness...but I am able to speak and I've lived far longer than anyone ever expected me to.

I watched smoking-related illnesses kill my father, my uncle, and more friends and acquaintances than I can count. I told both of my sons when they were growing up, that if I ever caught them smoking, it wouldn't be cancer that kills them...

Tobacco is the only consumer product that, when used as directed, harms the user. There is no safe dosage of any tobacco product. It has no medical or therapeutic benefit to the user. It's highly addictive. It drives up our health care costs, and it kills about 480,000 Americans annually. It's time to phase it out of our society, and if higher taxes on tobacco products help to achieve that goal, that's fine with me.

Glad to read you and your wife are doing well.

I lost my Dad to metastatic lung cancer, he died a month after his 56th birthday. Like me, he took up the habit when he was just a kid. After 40 plus years of heavy smoking the cancer had taken it toll on most organs in his body.

Many people I went to school with still puff em' every day. I don't know how they can still breath.

I figure if a person could smoke one or two a day, like alcohol in moderation it wouldn't be too harmful. Problem is, nicotine highly is addictive from the start. For too many people moderation will never be a strong point.

Sin taxes don't seem to deter a lot of youngsters from smoking in my area. I still see way too many 20 year olds with cigarettes in their hands.

My advice to young people, don't smoke even one. You're not going to miss a thing by passing on them. Ask most any adult smoker and they'll tell you they wished they'd never smoked that first one.

 

[WR Moore]

Guess I'm lucky.....when I was a kid I had bad sinus issues. Cigarette smoke was like ice picks in my nostrils so I never got the habit. There was another song about smoking where the chorus was someone's morning hacking cough.

BTW, if I recall our radiation training correctly (been ~40 years and it wasn't something I was really interested in), a pack a day is the equivalent of 5 REM a year radiation to the larynx. Has to do with some materials the tobacco picks up while growing.

 

[Skeet 028]

I started smoking at age 14.. I quit at age 47. right after I retired from the FD. I guess you could say I never smoked heavily...usually just a couple less than a pack a day...somedays just over. It's not really hard to quit. I did it many times. for a year after my mother passed from lung cancer...but to really quit you HAVE to want to. I can't believe the prices now...Dollar a pack when I quit. And like others the smell on others is somewhat nauseating. Have a bestfriend back in Md. Trying to get him to quit for years... Not likely. he just lost part of his ear to cancer. Had mine burned off years ago...working on the water and farming will do that to ya. Esophageal cancer was another gift,partially,from smoking.

 

[H Richard]

The last pack if cigarettes I bought was .39 in 1969. I did smoke a pipe off and on for a couple years, and a cigar off and on for a few years. Nothing in the past 23 years.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Roll yer own.