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On cigarettes

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Re: On cigarettes

#41

Post by shon »

wildzzz wrote: post #39
trevithick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different time. I remember the first question from the host at a restaurant being "smoking or non?"

I love going to restaurants that were built when smoking indoors was a thing and trying to figure out where the smoking section (or non-smoking section in older places) used to be. There are a few bars around that still have smoking sections in my area but the requirements are more stringent now (closed room, seperate air handling system). One of my favorite bars in college allowed smoking upstairs (and still does, a…

The good ole days ;)

In San Francisco, you can still find buildings where the elevators have ashtrays, though usually the actual tray is gone.

Re: On cigarettes

#42

Post by locusofself »

I haven't smoked in about 13 years, but I did from the time I was 13 until 29 or so.

It's disgusting and I couldn't be more glad that I quit, but it does sound good sometimes. I also quit drinking and had to give up caffeine, so I have like zero vices now besides napping and ice cream.

Re: On cigarettes

#43

Post by hnzix »

Gigachad wrote: post #37
thrixton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they were really effective or was it more the large price hikes (which have now been undone by vapes and black market cigarettes)? I guess it might have had an impact but it's hard to tell for me with the impressive mishandling of vapes and now the black market.

I mean it's hard to know the exact split, but obviously the combination of the negative advertising and price hikes killed smoking. It went from something that everyone did to only something addicts and homeless people do. Even with black market cigarettes now, kids still haven't taken up smoking. While vaping has exploded, and while it isn't harmless, it's clearly safer than smoking so the current situation is still…

> it's clearly safer than smoking

There's a lot of anti-vaping FUD in the Oz media right now. Anecdotally a lot of people I speak with view it as more harmful than smoking. And legislation has made it extremely unpleasant and inconvenient to obtain low-nic vapes that don't taste like ass.

Fortunately every second convenience store sells high-nic illegal vapes under the counter, with $deity knows what chemicals inside. Yay?

Re: On cigarettes

#44

Post by vlian2088 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Despite having never smoked a single cigarette in my life, I have an intensely strong reaction to a very specific brand. Early in high school I met my first crush, and one summer learned that she liked me back. She was my first everything. And the scent of a lot of that teenage exploration was the awful but sweet smell of her parents’ basement, stained with that brand of cigarette. I have no clue what brand it is. Bu…

I don't think I ever saw anyone identify a brand just by the smell. it's impossible. most brands from the same parent company are made at the same factory from the same batch of the same chemical-soaked tobacco pulp. it's just the filters and packages that are different. when I smoked, chesterfields, l&ms, pall malls, winstons, parliaments, etc, all tasted and smelled the same to me. only the cheapest godawful local brands smelled different than the rest.

Re: On cigarettes

#45

Post by [deleted] »

locusofself wrote: post #42

I haven't smoked in about 13 years, but I did from the time I was 13 until 29 or so. It's disgusting and I couldn't be more glad that I quit, but it does sound good sometimes. I also quit drinking and had to give up caffeine, so I have like zero vices now besides napping and ice cream.

[deleted]

Re: On cigarettes

#46

Post by hnzix »

sandcat_ wrote: post #22

I find the reduction in smoking cigarettes fascinating at a societal level, in a similar way to a few other topics: toxoplasma gondii, widespread use of SSRIs. Probably some others I'm not recalling. This must have had an effect, beyond health. Surely? It's hard to research because it gets crowded out (understandably) by all the negatives from smoking and all the improvements to health from the reduction of it. But n…

Smoking lowers the risk of developing ulcerative colitis and can suppress its symptoms. There's a lot of anecdotal stories on Reddit of people quitting smoking and getting an UC flare.

Re: On cigarettes

#47

Post by crypttales »

"Oh cigarette, Oh cigarette, How good thou are to me Yet I have crush you. "

Me the first time getting drunk in the woods realizing I had crushed my smoke in my jacket.

I became friends with my best friend that day.

Re: On cigarettes

#48

Post by ycombinete »

shon wrote: post #6

When I was a 20-something big-4 consultant traveling weeks on end for work, I took up smoking for exactly the reasons you suggest. I had nothing to do in my down time and knew nobody, but I could sit in hotel bar with a smoke and strangers would trail over. Yep, I’m old enough to have been working when you could still smoke in hotel bars. In Monaco you could order a pack of Marlboro Reds at your dinner table back in…

Old enough!? I'm old enough to remember that and I'm only... nearly 40, damn.

Re: On cigarettes

#49

Post by robocat »

SugarReflex wrote: post #18

I vaped for a while and my take was that you felt worse in general with the ability to feel better on command for a little bit. It may be the remnants of addiction speaking, but there was something about vaping that elevated certain scenarios. I loved standing at a tall place and watching the cloud dissipate into the scenery as my eye balls and body relaxed from the nicotine. Whether it was a cityscape or a high hill…

To quit caffeine, taper down intake slowly over a few weeks.

Caffeine pills (nodoz) are probably the best way to reduce intake slowly that I've done so far - easy to measure based on broken tablets.

There should be a product we could buy to do it because the progression would be satisfying in itself. Unfortunately one-off product categories never sell enough to make such a product profitable.

I've also done it slowly over a few weeks using instant coffee. It's a bit unpleasant at the end if watered-down because it's so weak. I also just reduced intake having the dry granules on a spoon (unpleasant but doable!)

Every few years I get bored of coffee shops or I get slight allergies to espresso coffee so I give up again.

Cold turkey gives me nasty headaches for far too long so I don't just stop any more.

Re: On cigarettes

#50

Post by tpm »

sandcat_ wrote: post #22

I find the reduction in smoking cigarettes fascinating at a societal level, in a similar way to a few other topics: toxoplasma gondii, widespread use of SSRIs. Probably some others I'm not recalling. This must have had an effect, beyond health. Surely? It's hard to research because it gets crowded out (understandably) by all the negatives from smoking and all the improvements to health from the reduction of it. But n…

One of the few public places it's still legal to smoke in in our country are psychiatric wards, supposedly it benefits the patients.

That said, there are other ways to consume nicotine.

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