I'm not 50, but I don't understand smoking at all

• smokers stink (I had a boss years ago that smoked and I couldn't be within 20ft of him because he just smelled like smoke all the time)
  
• I can't afford it. I can only afford one major addiction and my gun addiction is too strong
  
• It's extremely hot here in Arizona and I try my best to avoid being outside in the summer (I'm sure the same applies in the winter in a lot of places. Who wants to go outside in a blizzard to smoke?)
  
• I would love to say it's because my health and to some extent it is, but I'm sure double cheeseburgers will kill me too someday and I love a good double cheeseburger.

I'm sure there's other reasons, but this is what I can think of off hand.

My dad smoked. Even now, 37 years after he died (aneurism) I still don't mind a whiff of cigarette smoke. Reminds me of him. Once I smoked part of a pack. I was probably 13 then.

And I used to smoke cigars. 2 per year total. The cardiac surgeon said that's not smoking.

I'm not nearly as biased against it as some here are. One of my best friends smoked until he died. I didn't mind being around him when he smoked. Guess I got some 2nd hand smoke over the years. My memories of it wasn't that bad.

32. Never smoked. Never a drop of booze. From an early age I saw it latch on to people and let it seriously impact their lives.

No thanks.

I will be 80 in February. Never smoked a cigarette in my whole life. Only time I "tried" one was when I lit one for the truck driver for which I was the NCOIC. And that was not a single drag.

Why did I never smoke?

I think I was 14 when my dad took me aside and said if I wanted to smoke it was OK with him and mom, but I would have to buy my own.

Note that I was already paying room and board to live at home.

Did a quick calculation and discovered that a pack of cigarettes cost about 25 cents, the same as a box of 22LR ammo. I figured I would rather shoot that smoke and that ended the issue.

Both parents smoked, all the extended family smoked packs a day. Lots of the guys in the army smoked, a lot. I think a carton cost about a buck back then, so about 10 cents a pack?

Both my inlaws smoked as well until they both got cancer at which point they quit, too.

In this day and age, with all the bad news from the gubbermint and media about smoking, cancer, emphysema, etc, I find it absolutely STUPID for anyone to start smoking.

I'm 55 and don't smoke. I did try it in high school once, trying to impress a girl, lol.

My parents were both smokers and I hated the smell of it. They both died from complications of smoking. Pretty sad.......

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Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
Both of my parents smoked and i hated it.

This. I hated, despised the smell and being forced to ride in a car in winter with the windows rolled up was pure torture.

Same here. And in the summer, too, with the windows all closed and the A/C on. Yuck.

Tried a pipe in college, loved the smell of the cherry and whiskey tobacco but couldn't stand the after taste.

However, I did trade all of my C-Ration cigarette 5-packs for pound cakes!

I smoke like a chimney. My parents don't, both grandparents did and are dead, my only brother doesn't. I need to quit.

I wish I could step up and say I was over 50 and never smoked.

I grew up in the tobacco belt, it was our livelihood, and I sneaked and smoked at an earky age (13)1965

I smoked heavily until 2003 when the doctor told me I would have to quit after telling me I had cancer. I have never smoked again.

Now after years of being a non-smoker, I look back and see how foolish the habit is, for example , that fear of running out of cigarettes at night, and rummaging ash trays to satisfy the nicotine vice.

My father and step father smoked, but mother didn't. Now, 14 years after quitting, the smoke really bothers me.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
Both of my parents smoked and i hated it.

Me too. I couldn't stand the stink.

My Dad smoked for years, quitting three or four times along the way before kicking the habit from his late sixties until his late eighties, when he took it up again. As many here know, he passed away this past March from a combination of heart disease and dementia at 92.

My Mom never smoked and led a very healthy lifestyle. Ironically, she was the one who died first---from colon cancer in 1981, age 57.

I never smoked for two reasons. One, I didn't like the smell and my Mom never could wash the odor out of my Dad's clothes. Two, I saw how devastated my uncle was when his wife, actress Ann Sheridan, died less than a year after they married. Like most people in show business, she smoked like a chimney. Lung cancer took her painfully and quickly at age 51.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Why anyone would start smoking today, however, is unfathomable. I recently learned that the 20-something son of a good friend just started. He is brilliant and a financial success, and I was left flabbergasted by the news.

This. With as much info as is out there, I raise my eyebrows in WTF every time I hear of a youngster that starts smoking. WHY? It makes no sense. You know its gross, you know its expensive, you know its bad for your health and will likely kill you. Sounds like a great idea. Lets start smoking at 15, 18, or 20. Idiots.

My mother smoked when I was kid and I hated it.



She died of lung cancer at the age of 42.

(oops, I'm just shy of 50)

I'm past 50. My grandfather, the only relative I was truly close to smoked like a chimney. Near the end he had every smoking related disease you could get. It finally killed him. He started smoking in WW2 as a means of relieving stress.

I despise smoking. It is hard for me as I really am a live and let live kind of guy but I don't associate with people who smoke regularly.

Mark

I remember being about 4 and couldn't sleep. My mom and dad smoked in those early years. I badgered my mom to try a cigarette. All it took to stay away. Coughed all night.

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If you’re over 50 and never smoked...
Why didn't you?

It's disgusting.

I'm not 50 yet but... asthma

Like others, my Mom smoked like a chimney and I couldn't stand the smell. Consequently, I never even tried one.

I worked at the hospital maintenance shop one summer when I was in high school. The pathologists showed me the lungs of a person that smoked and one that didn't. The lungs of the smoker were black as tar while the non-smoker were pink.

At the time, I had never smoked and my parents didn't smoke so there was no interest.

I was exposed to a smoking environment the last place I worked until enough people complained that the company made the people that smoked to go outside. Also dirty air like around an airport is also bad for your health.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
Both of my parents smoked and i hated it.

Same reason

My mother smoked and was particularly filthy with the habit. Neither I nor any of my siblings smoke.