anti-social smokers?

Contrary to the belief that smoking is mainly a sociable habit, taken up by impressionable young people in order to fit in with a crowd -- a belief upon which anti-smoking deterrents are based -- Topaz, 23, took it up because she wanted to keep people -- especially men -- away from her!

"It's the most effective way I know to avoid unwanted attentions," laughs Topaz, "and when some pushy guy dares to break into my personal space to tell me how much I stink, and how unattractive he thinks smoking women are, it only reinforces my belief that smoking is one of the best defences a girl can have."

"I know that a lot of smokers -- men and women -- feel very threatened by this sort of abuse," says Topaz, "but in today's anti-smoking climate you cannot really expect people to behave otherwise towards you."

"Social smokers are extremely vulnerable to this sort of abuse," explains Topaz, "and that's why they're quitting in droves. They cannot handle people hating them. They want so much to be loved that they'd eat dog poo is someone influential told them it would make them more lovable. Poor souls!"

"The self-medicating smokers are terribly defensive when faced with abuse from anti-smokers," says Topaz. "They are likely to respond with equal abuse or slink back into their shells of despair depending upon their personalities or size."

"As for anti-social smokers like me, it's water off a duck's back," laughs Topaz, "and yes, I do understand the irony of my situation. I realize that smoking in public is likely to attract attention -- which I don't want -- but if I did NOT smoke I would receive a lot more attention. Get it?"

"Some girls -- consciously or otherwise -- actually put on weight to avoid unwanted attentions," says Topaz, "and that option was not attractive to me. I wouldn't like myself if I were fat. Smoking suited my purposes perfectly."

"If you cannot understand why I took up smoking to avoid unwanted attention then you are either a man or a very ugly girl," laughs Topaz. "I have been hassled by men since I was a little girl, and I just didn't want to be preyed on any more."

"Also, I didn't want other girls being mean to be because I am better looking than they are."

"I didn't want to solve this problem by making myself unattractive --- putting on weight, wearing ugly spectacles or wearing false buck teeth," laughs Topaz, "and I couldn't hide myself in a burka like women in other cultures do, so I decided to take up a dirty, stinking, disgusting habit that would make me a universal pariah."

"It worked like a charm," laughs Topaz, "and what's more, I enjoy it."

"No, I wouldn't say that I am anti-social -- a loner -- by nature," explains Topaz, "but I am probably a lot more self-contained than most people are."

"I have a good job, I'm paid very well and my boss -- a woman -- disapproves of my habit without disapproving of me," says Topaz. "She understands why I started smoking and just tells me not to smoke around her!"

"As for boyfriends," laughs Topaz, "I choose them rather than them choosing me."

"When I see a guy I like, I won't smoke if he's not smoking -- and yes, I can stop smoking when I want to because I'm not doing it to medicate myself."

"Preferably, I'd choose a guy who doesn't smoke because I don't want to take on a guy who may have problems," says Topaz, "and besides which I want children one day."

"I wasn't raised in a smoking home and I wouldn't want my children to be exposed to extra pollutants while they are developing," explains Topaz. "Our environment is toxic enough with vehicle and industrial pollutants and while adults can take it I don't believe little children can."

"Am I an anti-social menace because I smoke?" asks Topaz. "Well, I suppose I am in a way, but in a society that's anti-social towards me -- encouraging men to be predatory and women to be their playthings -- a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to protect herself."

smoking milch cows

There are so many lawyers, anti-smoking organizations and government health departments stacked up against the tobacco companies that Eileen, a social worker, is convinced that the whole smoking issue is one big Milch Cow.

"It's not just the tobacco companies getting milked for all they are worth but us, the stupid smokers, too," says Eileen, "and I'm not apologizing for using the 'stupid' word for smokers because that's what both sides of the issue think of us, and frankly I sometimes think of myself like that, too."

"The smoking issue is the most convoluted thing I've ever come across and because lawyers are involved I believe it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

"What's a cosy legal battle in plush offices for them is a dirty war of abuse on the streets for us," says Eileen, "and I am angry with the tobacco companies as well as the others for turning the lives of smokers upside down, robbing us of our hard earned money and causing others to abuse us."

"On a social level, the 'suits' from the tobacco companies and their so-called enemy 'suits' in the other camps probably do lunch together every day, entertain in each other's homes and send their kids to the same posh schools," says Eileen. "And, if they ever DO think about the fallout abuse that their cosy little war costs us, the stupid smokers, it would be followed invariably with peals of sneering laughter because -- wait for it -- I have yet to find evidence that any of the tobacco company guys actually smoke."

"The tobacco companies make such an absolute fortune from us -- the stupid smokers -- that the other stuff, the legal war, is merely a game they enjoy playing," explains Eileen. "And because money is no problem for either side, they are going to keep their legal wars going forever -- and don't the lawyers love that!"

"Do you realize that we -- the stupid smoking Milch Cows -- get slugged with income tax and tobacco tax to pay the other side as well?" asks Eileen. "We are paying for the whole thing! How does that grab you? Doesn't it make you feel uber stupid?"

"In my social work I get to see the real victims of the smoking war," explains Eileen. "Low income and disadvantaged people -- including single moms, disabled people and the elderly -- who are already victimized by society because of their circumstances. On top of this, they then get abused for smoking."

"Most of these people smoke to make their miserable lives a bit better," says Eileen, "and every day I think how much better off they would be if they could stop smoking (impossible, I've tried) or if this stupid smoking war would end and give them back a bit of dignity -- and a lot more dollars in their pockets."

"In my social work I also get to see some of the BIG people involved in the tobacco war from the government's angle," says Eileen, "but of course I don't work with them like I do the victims of tobacco. I just 'see' them swanning around in their power suits, puffed up with importance, believing they're on a crusade to save us from tobacco when everyone knows what they're really doing."

"Oh sure, there are some genuine souls who naively believe that giving up smoking to spare yourself a horrible death is a good thing," sighs Eileen, "but they just don't understand that most of the people I'm working with would die a horrible death in any case, one that is totally unrelated to smoking."

"When they think of a smoker -- if they ever do -- they are probably thinking of someone like me," says Eileen. "Someone with a bit of education who should know better and, with a bit more pressure, might give up the deadly habit."

"Well, if I ever do succeed in quitting it will be to avoid kicking myself over and over again for being milked by these guys," laughs Eileen. "It will have nothing to do with the health benefits I might gain because I know I will suffer far worse health problems by quitting. My life may be better than those of the poor people whose troubles I try to resolve, but it is still miserable in its own way and smoking helps get me through it all."

"I get dizzy trying to count the number of do-goody organizations on the tobacco gravy train -- oops, sorry to mix my metaphors," laughs Eileen. "Every day a new one seems to pop up and our tax payer dollars just keep on flowing for them."

"Can you believe that all this has been going on since 1964 when Congress protected the tobacco companies from the effects of litigation by means of the Surgeon General's warning label?" sighs Eileen. "I was born a year later, so all of my life this rubbish has been going on and it is never going to stop."

"When the first of these do-goody organizations came into being its purpose was to educate the public and hold the tobacco companies to the same degree of accountability as other industries," explains Eileen, "and, as far as I am concerned, that purpose was achieved long ago. But, seeing the dollars rolling in and a life-time career ahead of them, these guys dug in and encouraged a multitude of other parasitic types to join in for whatever other purposes they had in mind."

"I make no apologies for using the parasitic word either," says Eileen, "because that's what most of them are. They feed off our addiction, our desire to smoke and the miseries of our lives that caused most of us to start smoking in the first place."

"Even if their purpose were genuinely to help us stop smoking so that we could save money and live a healthier life," says Eileen, "they can offer us nothing to fill the gap that smoking filled, a gap that we might fill with something far more dangerous."

"These people know nothing about 'gaps' or their myriad causes," confides Eileen, "and that's why they have no right to dictate what is good or bad for us. Like most think tank types, they think of other human beings as cohorts or metrics on a chart, stripped of all humanity. They make pronouncements from ivory towers that even they, in their saner moments, must find appalling."

"It has been said over and over again -- by smokers as well as non-smokers -- that if tobacco is the killer they make it out to be then it should be banned," says Eileen, "but these guys have no desire whatsoever to put the tobacco industry out of business or to make cigarettes illegal. They don't see the inconsistency of what they're telling us and even if they did, they don't care. Why should they? Parasites by nature only feed off hosts certain to keep the milk and honey flowing forever."

"The tobacco industry, as I see it, has fulfilled all of the requirements asked of it and the burden of responsibility has now shifted fairly and squarely to the cigarette smoker," says Eileen. "It's time for these do-goody organizations to go away and find some other milch cow."

"We are, of course, still stuck with the government -- the biggest parasite of them all because without tobacco tax it wouldn't be able to fund invasions and do other goods things," sighs Eileen. "So, even if the others disappeared off the scene we are still going to get milked."

"Moo!"

tobacco tax funding ASH ads?

When the government raises tobacco tax -- saying it's to pay for the health costs of smoking -- Pilar begrudgingly pays more for her cigarettes, but when she sees government funded anti-smoking advertisements similar to those used by ASH on television, radio and in print she quite rightly fumes!

"Who is running the government, ASH or our elected representatives?" asks Pilar. "And how dare they spend revenue raised from smokers to fund disgusting advertisements designed to beat us up."

"You would think that the ASH activists would have better things to pour their energies into, wouldn't you," sighs Pilar. "They are 100% dedicated to stamping out smokers and it wouldn't matter if a terrorist bomb dropped near them -- they'd still focus their attentions on smokers because it appears that we, not the terrorists, are always going to be the main enemy, the main scourge of the Earth."

"Damn it, even drug addicts shooting up heroin are better treated than smokers are," says Pilar, "and all of this vilification appears to be due entirely to the propaganda against smoking put out by ASH. Starting out with little lies and repeating them endlessly, they eventually become irrefutable truths. It's brainwashing at its worst."

"I watch television, read papers and listen to the radio purely for entertainment and news," says Pilar. "I don't expect to be confronted with bullying, vile and untruthful advertisements against smoking -- and especially when they are put out by the government and paid for by my smoking tax dollars."

"Where are these billions of tobacco sin-tax dollars going?" asks Pilar. "Straight into the pockets of the anti-smoking lobby, that's where -- or straight into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies designing more and more dodgy products which are supposed to help people stop smoking."

"Well, hello? Tobacco is my drug of choice, smoking is my only vice, I have no intention of quitting and I demand that these moral crusaders get off my back!"



Read more by Pilar on this issue:

taxes diverted to the rich

ASH goes MADD

Crazy government priorities