you know where I bet would be the worst place to have a heart attack? during a game of charades.

[the_siobhan]

Anybody who spends any time hanging out with me knows that I am brutally allergic to cigarettes. Over the last ten years my allergy and my asthma has gotten to the point where I can't be near the stuff at all - even the stale smoke coming off the clothes of somebody I'm sitting next to can have my lungs contracting in protest.

But I don't react nearly as strongly to pipe or cigarette smoke. If I get it blown in face I get about the same amount of a reaction as I would to getting a face full of street dust. In fact I've smoked the odd cigar and enjoyed it. Which leads me to believe that I'm not actually allergic to tobacco, but to something in the curing process or additives that are specific to cigarettes.

A few years ago there was an anti-smoking ad that showed a couple of teenagers diving into an oily-looking pool while a text-over listed all the toxic ingredients that are found in cigarettes. Tar. Formaldehyde. Ammonia. Now I don't know how many of those things are also found in other tobacco products or are just a by-product of burning leaves and twigs and bug-poo and sucking them into your lungs, but it's a well-known fact that cigarette manufacturers add all kinds of glop specifically intended to make the things more addictive.

And I gotta wonder, why do we let them?

Everybody knows quitting smoking is hard, whether you've actually ever smoked or not. At this point I think I've still known more people who have successfully quite heroin or cocaine than I've know people who have successfully quit smoking, and it's not like I've spent a lot of time hanging around with illegal drug users in the last decade. Yet we still allow manufactures to lace their product with toxic chemicals that are specifically designed to make it harder.

Given the amount of money that we fork over through our taxes on health care, wouldn't it make more sense to tell the cigarette companies to knock that shit off and stop trying to poison us?

And maybe if they did I'd be able to sit next to my friends on a bar patio again.

Comments

[the_axel]

You led me to as the interwebs. It turns out that Tobacco companies have been allowed to be really, really secretive.

But Massachusetts recently passed a law requiring that tobacco companies list their ingredients, and one company has actually done so without dragging it through the courts for years.

Here it is - all 599.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That's... pretty impressive.

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

I'm really surprised at how many of the identifiable ingredients are flavoring agents. Good quality tobacco tastes pretty good on it's own. Not that I think for a minute that most cigarettes contain good quality tobacco.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

The few times I've smoked cigars they've tasted pretty good. I think I've smoked a cigarette once in my life and it tasted like burnt asscrack.

[the-fury.livejournal.com]

There are some high quality roll your own tobaccos that are really good. You pretty much have to go to a tobaccanist for them though.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Actually one of the interesting things about that article is that the flavours are mostly added to counteract the bitterness caused by the filters - which don't do shit to protect your lungs. And since they are usually made out of fiberglass they are the major non-biodegradable part of the cigarette and probably a carcinogen in their own right.

[megiddo-lj.livejournal.com]

I greatly prefer cigars to cigarettes for just that reason. Cigars are pure tobacco. I can't remember the last time I had a regular cigarette (as opposed to a clove cigarette or cigar) and it doesn't really hold much appeal these days. I'm lucky, though. I started smoking at 13 and never managed to get addicted even though I do indulge in tobacco on a semi-regular basis. Now you've got me hankering to fire up the hookah tonight =)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

It was your post about cigars that made me think about this.

[dj-doc.livejournal.com]

Hmm everybody who smokes should smoke cigars. I myself never liked cigarettes but I smoked 'em anyway. A couple of years ago I switched to cigares only. Not only does it taste baetter but I also like how it makes my house smell :-)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I wish they would!

I wonder how successful I'd be if I instituted a cigars and pipes only rule at one of my parties.

It's a Cuban pigroast, it fits with the theme.

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

People always tell me I'm crazy when I say there's a difference, so I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who gets ill from cigarrette smoke, but doesn't mind straight tobacco smoke.

I've smoked cigars on occasion. I like the smell and enjoy being a little butch while sucking on a huge phallic symbol. I have a good many positive associations with cigars, the biggest probably being that my dad smoked them instead of cigarrettes when he wasn't gambling. He wasn't abusive or neglectful when the cigars came out. Rich and well educated men smoke them in movies, so obviously a symbol of prosperity and comfort for me. Pipes are similar for similar reasons, but thanks to Tolkien, they also represent the comforts of home one carries with them while traveling. I did so much traveling, I always wanted to learn to smoke a pipe. Took that symbol a little too literally :)

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Huh. Now I feel bad for smoking on the back patio when you were visiting. :(

I currently only smoke "natural" cigarettes (Kretek's Natural Dreams and, in a pinch, American Spirits, although I'm the kind of smoker who can go without rather than smoke a cigarette I don't like), which claim that they don't have additives. I don't know that I believe them on this, but I like the brand a lot. I'd be curious to know if those set you off as well. (You could be, like, our own personal coal-mine canary! "Hey, is this one really natural?")

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who quit smoking by stepping down from regular cigarettes to the American Spirit ones - he said he went through a bitch of a withdrawal when he switched over and was smoking three packs a day to deal with the jonesing. When he got over that and was down to a pack a day again, he quit cold turkey. And had a much milder withdrawal.

So just from that I'd say there's a difference.

I've never been exposed to the Natural Dreams (unless that's what you were smoking in SLC, and I honestly don't remember if they bothered me) and the few times where I've been around people who were smoking American Spirit there have been tons of other people also around smoking their own brands at the same time. It would certainly be an interesting experiment.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Congratulations you have identified the immense, horrific power of the Big Tobacco lobby.