Indian Weed
A weed among the plants we find
That hurts the body and the mind,
Yet in the way of self-abuse,
We see it constantly in use.
Unpleasant to the smell and taste
Yet men for it their money waste;
The reason why I scare can tell
For none at first do like it well.
Some do it chew and some it smoke
Whilst others in their nose it poke….
-William B.Shockley, 19th Century
I don’t smoke; not for lack of trying. When I was growing up, all the cool people smoked. Everybody had ashtrays all over their houses. Like drinking coffee- just adult behavior.
Can’t ya just picture Steve McQueen standing there looking sexy with a butt hanging out of his mouth?
I’ve got a throat full of old, scarred up tonsils. Perhaps that affected my “full rich smoking experience”, and I never managed to get hooked.
I’ve seen what smoking does to people down the road.My mother died from emphysema. My brother-he was a Camel smoker-got throat cancer. After having radiation treatments, he had a heart attack and died at age 47.
All that coolness, not to mention lovely druginess, has a price.
Still, I take a “live and let live” approach to smoking. It’s your life and as long as you aren’t fogging up my air, fine. Don’t smoke around a kid either: knowing everything they do now, it’s child abuse!
There’s talk in the news that Congress is going to vote on putting tobacco under the legal control of the Food and Drug Administration. Part of its ongoing quest to get people to stop smoking.
Gee, it’s worked well so far…about as good as Prohibition, or narcotics laws. Wonder what it would mean- getting a prescription to buy a pack of smokes?
I think the most effective thing to get people to give up smoking is the cost! When I was a kid, my mom could send me to the corner store with a dollar and a note-and I came back with four packs of Raleighs! Pyrate could buy a carton from his ship’s store for $5. The other day at the gas station there was a sale- a carton of Marlboros for $57.50.
If I did smoke, I’d be growing my own!
But they best not even dream of regulating chocolate!