Do you smoke cigarettes?

[Thunderbird is the word]

too lazy to do the partisan breakdown but I find it funny that I've sometimes noticed more smokers that are left leaning then right leaning given that the political left is also more anti-tobacco yet I almost associate smoking with a more libertine lifestyle. Probably because most smokers hate the fact that they have an addiction and aren't very likely to organize politically as smokers so the issue is ceded to the anti-tobacco moralists.

[Thunderbird is the word]

Maybe i'm just that rare bird that's able to smoke in moderation without getting addicted. I'll go through a pack every other week or so and then be able to go days without one. I honestly don't know how I do it.

[Thunderbird is the word]

If anything, smoking can make one's social life more difficult, when you have to constantly leave your company for a puff in places, where there are anti-smoking rules.

No (all liberal all the time)

What the fyck does it have to do with this?

Liberals hate tobacco.

It's funny though as I noted in the first post I've met more liberal and left-leaning smokers then conservative ones. I don't think that's really accurate.

[Thunderbird is the word]

If anything, smoking can make one's social life more difficult, when you have to constantly leave your company for a puff in places, where there are anti-smoking rules.

No (all liberal all the time)

What the fyck does it have to do with this?

Liberals hate tobacco.

It's funny though as I noted in the first post I've met more liberal and left-leaning smokers then conservative ones. I don't think that's really accurate.

BRTD yet again fails to understand not everything is a political issue.

ALL LIBERAL ALL THE TIME

[Thunderbird is the word]

No (all liberal all the time)

Sorry, dude, but I'm not letting you get away with these moronic posts that just decide that because you are a "liberal," everything you like and do is "liberal" ----> all liberal, all the time.  Smoking a cigarette is neither liberal nor conservative, and if you think it is, you're seriously retarded.

The black states are the ones without public smoking bans:

Even so I wouldn't say that it's a culture war issue in the same way that abortion or gay marriage or guns is though. The reason that southern states are less likely to ban it is probably just because the tobacco industry is stronger there. When I lived in New York as an undergrad a good deal of the smokers were lefty hipster types in part because I think a lot of people take up smoking when they're young as a form of misguided rebellion and a lot of the people that do might be inclined to lean to the left for cultural reasons. It's just that most come to hate the habit and the tobacco industry because it doesn't have any effect except or any real benefit to slowly kill you so you aren't going to see them very likely to organize politically against smoking bans. Meanwhile I think that a lot of conservative minded people who might subscribe to a clean living conservative lifestyle would be less likely to take it up in the first place.

[Thunderbird is the word]

I quit over five months ago.  I smoked for eight years and eventually came to believe within myself that supporting tobacco companies was irreconcilable with my social worldview.  How could I continue to contribute to sickness, greed and death?  I didn't have to work throughout my quitting experience and that was definitely helpful.  The irritability is real and intense.  I have used some nicotine replacement products (like the gum) in the past and it was not helpful for anything other than not smelling like smoke for brief periods of time; pretty useless to me as a quitting aid.  Cold turkey was what worked for me.  And throughout that time, while I didn't feel pleasant, I didn't necessarily think that breaking and having a cigarette was the answer.  I've only had a few serious cravings since, usually around friends who are smoking.

Reasons to oppose tobacco companies other than their promotion of a product that kills people by causing cancer, emphysema, strokes, heart attacks, gangrene and other diseases?  The undocumented children they use as labor in their fields right in the United States who get sick from nicotine absorption into their hands simply from picking the leaves all day, for longer than most adults work in each day.  The strong arm tactics they use to shut down smoking restrictions in developing countries, including age limits, where their customer base continues to grow as it falls in other countries.  The millions of beagles and other animals needlessly pumped full of cigarette smoke in order to cast doubt on whether smoking causes lung cancer as though the ultimate proof would be anything other than the actual human population which has conclusively proven in its own 'testing' that of course smoking causes lung cancer in humans.  The lost habitat and wasted use of land caused by ever expanding tobacco growing operations.  The fact that cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item on earth, and the nicotine and other toxins in the litter seeps out into waterways, poisoning ecosystems and urban wildlife.  The millions of children who grow up asthmatic or with breathing problems, and the spouses that acquire them, due to living with smokers.  When I think about all of this, I ask whether it's really necessary to keep indulging in a product just so that I don't have to feel irritable for a few weeks?  Well, my answer is no.

I honestly didn't think about it that way before. Excellent points.