Smokers… a generation lost
Smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature death in the United States and many other industrialized countries.
I run a health site – of course my enemy #1 is tobacco related products, followed by obesity and general health laziness – all of which are lifestyle CHOICES that lead to a premature death and dramatic decrease in the quality of life.
My experiences with smoking and smokers
When I was a kid, I was as curious as anybody else and did try smoking – if everybody was doing it (especially back then)… it should be good for me too 
Well, I took one puff and my throat constricted and I felt like I inhaled a camp fire as I coughed immediately and vowed to never do that again. As I come from a French Canadian background, smoking seems to “us” as natural as eating or sleeping, when I visit my relatives – they pretty much all smoke (or are in the cycle of vowing to quit). So to me, living a life with nicotine addiction would not have been frowned upon very much.
If smoking is so bad for you – why do people do it?
I have come to the realization of many things in my 30 years of existence, the main factors as to why I think people prefer to slowly kill themselves instead of simply getting a gun and getting it over with are:
Too much EASY time
In the industrialized world, we have all way too much time. SERIOUSLY! Activities that related directly to keeping us alive take up a very little of our day. The challenges of getting supper on the table would be magical even 500 years back… our lives are very automated, from washing cloths to warming up our “food”. This has come at a cost of our own social self-esteem, the pride we use to get daily from keeping our family alive has now been very poorly replaced by “buy-esteem”.
Fear of death
I don’t believe in God or an afterlife, I tell people who try to “convert me” that I prefer to get my fiction from movies. I respect spiritual people but to me, personally, it’s no more then a coping mechanism to deal with our own mortality. I take fantastic pride in myself that I am dealing with death head-on, I truly believe I have absolutely NOTHING TO LOOSE by living the life of my dreams now – this has given me incredible power and self-confidence. I am actually to the point of joking around telling people I know that if there is an afterlife, I will probably ask God to send me back to Earth because I have created my own paradise People can’t deal with their mortality, they fear dying so what they oddly do, is slowly kill themselves by becoming unhealthy and taking up bad habits… creating an excuse for their own early demise – they fear dying quick but slowly seems OK with them. Makes no sense huh… but that is what I read everyday when I meet people. It’s like being afraid of the dark but slowly building the nerve to slowly step into it, gradation of light by gradation.
Smokers… a generation lost
We have added a new section on myfoodcount.com, it’s within our “famous people, everyday problems” section under Nicotine Addicts. I was surprised how many really famous people died prematurely from smoking related causes… here is a partial list of only entertainers (we have almost 300 so far from all fields of life).
Desi Arnaz (lung cancer)
Lucille Ball (aortic aneurism)
Humphrey Bogart (esophagus cancer)
John Candy (heart attack)
Johnny Carson (emphysema)
Jack Cassidy (burned alive smoking in bed)
Nat “King” Cole (lung cancer)
Sammy Davis Jr. (throat cancer)
Clark Gable (heart attack)
Betty Grable (lung cancer)
Susan Hayward (lung cancer)
Eileen Heckart (cancer)
Bill Hicks (pancreatic cancer)
Judy Holliday (throat cancer)
Wolfman Jack (heart attack)
Peter Jennings
Andy Kaufman (second hand smoke - lung cancer)
Buster Keaton (lung cancer)
Don Knotts (lung cancer)
Ernie Kovacs (skull fracture from an automobile accident caused when he was trying to light his cigar)
Michael Landon (pancreas and liver cancer)
Nancy Marchand (lung cancer)
Lee Marvin (heart attack)
Groucho Marx (lung cancer / several strokes / heart attack / pneumonia)
Marilyn Maxwell (heart attack brought on by high blood pressure and a pulmonary ailment)
Doug McLure (lung cancer)
Steve McQueen (lung cancer)
Dick Powell (lung cancer)
Vincent Price (lung cancer)
Anne Ramsey (throat cancer)
George C. Scott (ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, had several heart attacks)
Rod Serling (heart disease)
Robert Shaw (heart attack)
Anne Shirley (lung cancer)
John Wayne (heart disease, various cancers)
Joan Woodbury (lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD)
Dick York (emphysema)
If tobacco related products are so bad to you – why can you still buy them?
I blame this squarely on our government – the “don’t smoke” ads are a joke, they tend to make smoking look like eating cheese, “its not that bad for you but hey, if you want to stop eating cheese, give us a call”. The penalties regarding underage smoking are rarely enforced and worse, the government subsidizes tobacco producers (????).
The absolute impotence of our leaders to make any real decisions other then fighting futile wars makes me quite pessimistic regarding the real value of us “citizens” in the world we live in. Why are tobacco products still freely available? Because the government DOES NOT CARE about your health! If they did, junk food and tobacco products would not be found, especially blocks away from schools!
The Bottom Line
Nobody cares about your health other then you… so you must take the initiative and make it YOUR top priority.
LINK OF INTEREST
Cigarette manufacturers increase nicotine yield in the past 6 years
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2371123
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