Why do people keep smoking?

[Brian Turner]

Heh, good point - to really quit, you need to mentally turn against tobacco, so that you convince yourself that it tastes horrible. Leave a fag out to dry for a while, then smoke it - tastes foul. Save one for just before quitting, then linger on the taste and remind yourself that this is what a fag actually tastes like, and that this isn't something to like.

2c.

[lin robinson]

I dunno... any really committed smoker will fish a butt out of the toilet, dry it out and light it up if need be.

In the California prisons after smoking was outlawed guys were drying out spinach on light bulbs, rolling it in the flimsy pages from cheap Gideon bibles (known as "Holy Rollers" in the ambience...using arraignment papers for the purpose procduces the "Court Appointed Cigarette") and lighing them by folding aluminum foil just so, inserting it into the "cigarette" just right, then leaning their face close to an electric socket and jabbing it in so that when the current exploded the foil, they might get a light.

I think this says a lot about the habit, and how it's not even really the chemicals people are hooked on.

[The Digital Channel]

Yet again smokers being targeted........ its bad enough that we are restricted from where we can smoke, ( I am not against the smoking ban, however I am against the fact that we did not have a choice about it... we live in a time which is meant to promote "equal rights" so where are the equal rights for smokers, I now this is an old topic, however you asked the question..) know you are targetting the right of an indivdual to smoke...

I could ask, why do people keep drinking, I think the health issues related to drinking are as serious, maybe more so however drinking creates a social issue aswell (aggression, fighting, etc)

With regards your point that smokers die younger, that is a statement which by default is a pointless one, smoker or not when your time comes it comes......

[lin robinson]

You remind me of my brother. He used to say, "What should I do, quit smoking so I can die healthy."

He did quit though. It's pretty obvious it's not good for you.

Look, I'm an ex-smoker, but I'm not into the whole anti-smoke hysteria. I have less tolerance for smoke than the average never-smoker, but I don't bitch about it or support all the prohibition about it.

But I think you are reaching trying to tie that sentiment to this thread. The drinking analogy is not analogous at all. You drink, you feel good, you have fun. Maybe you get laid.

Smoking doesn't really do that much for you and once it's habitual you don't even get the small rush you did the first few times.

Yet people continue to do it. It's not weird that somebody would wonder why.

[rascolians]

People keep smoking because they are addicted to nicotine. Those that want to stop struggle, and those that don't want to stop don't.

It all starts with the individual. You can take the horse to water, and those that want to drink ( ie use the cessation support will) and then there are those that don't want to drink.

I don't smoke and don't like it. It is a dirty, disgusting habit the product of which, smoke, is uninvited and makes me smell. I don't mind the odd beer, the product of which makes me go to the toilet, I wonder if smokers would object if I deposited that product upon them uninvited?