The Unjust Persecution of Smokers
I haven't had a cigarette since last Saturday. It was about time I quit again. I was off the smokes for two or three months earlier in the year but stress and apathy conspired to start me again. In the last two weeks the toll of constant change combined with the Marlboro Lights has given me a cough, which is proving hard to shake off.

Cigarettes in Canada are punitively taxed, much as they are in the UK so I'll be a little better off financially too. I really resent the tax on tobacco. I have probably already paid for about four heart bypass operations and with a bit of luck I shouldn't survive more than two or three. Ideally of course I'll bypass the whole bypass thing by quitting now. Obviously in the UK, Canada and other enlightened places the state pays for healthcare, but it seems a little harsh only punishing smokers for their cost to the system. So for today's arbitrary attack on the innocent I am going to pick on lovers of winter sports.

Skiers pay no serious tax on their hobby and they're injured so much that in the US they get their plaster casts on 3 for the price of 2 deals. Snowboarders have selected more or less the only pastime actually guaranteed to cause wrists and elbow trauma. Both of these groups are also prone to liver damage caused by drinking far too much mulled wine while bullshitting themselves about how cool they are on the black runs. Not to mention syphilis and other social diseases acquired during the apres ski sex. How much tax are they paying in to the system for all the treatment they get? Nothing over and above the sales tax on their equipment. Skiers and snowboarders cost the National Health Service considerably more than stamp collectors and anglers yet they pay no more in to the government pot!

It's getting more and more difficult to find a place to smoke now. In Ontario you pretty much have to go outside for a cigarette, much as you do in Ireland and a lot of other places. Why? Because the government says non-smokers should not be forced to inhale smoke passively due to their choice of jobs or their choice of whether to go into a bar or not. I think they should stop people from driving cars because non-drivers have to suffer from exhaust emissions and people that work in gas stations are inhaling all that benzene. You have to smoke a lot of cigarettes to beat a Cadillac on toxic emissions!

Smoking is a more or less environmentally neutral hobby, the tobacco plant absorbs CO2 from the air which we release again by smoking it. But every government now seems anti-smoker while leaving other more harmful pursuits alone. Take hot air ballooning. Now this is a seriously environmentally damaging hobby. The balloonist drives off to the countryside in a gas guzzling 4x4 towing an enormous trailer. He gets to where he's going and burns huge quantities of propane to blow up his balloon. It takes off in a random, wind blown direction followed by the ground crew in the Land Cruiser so it can be packed up again after landing. All this for a couple of hours flying in a desperate attempt to persuade the girl he's taken along that he is an at one with nature sky master and that she should shag him in the basket. There are more honest ways to get laid. Fact: Ballooning is more environmentally damaging than either prostitution or masturbation.

Smokers as a rule die younger and are therefore less of a burden on the state, pension and insurance companies. They are actually helping to reduce population density issues and by virtually ensuring that their bodies die before their brains do ensuring that they do not contract Alzheimers or any of those other unpleasant old age brain malfunctions.


In Canada about half the surface area of the cigarette packet is devoted to the health warning, each pack has a photo of something highly unpleasant on it, a heart after a heart attack, a lung operation, some vile looking teeth after mouth cancer. I wondered if the picture was related to the tar levels of the cigarettes; ever so slightly yellowed teeth for extra lights; a gangrenous amputated leg for the full tar smokes; a smiling lady-boy prostitute for menthols. Apparently the warning is random which is a wasted opportunity. Not knowing one Canadian cigarette from another, I only bought smokes that lungs on them regardless of brand. If someone else offered me a cigarette I always checked the packet first, as I wouldn't smoke anything from a packet with an erectile dysfunction warning in case there was something especially dangerous about them.

Anyway, I don't have to worry about cigarette issues now, the cough is starting to go and the new woman in my life wants to smooch with me a lot more.

Winter Sports can seriously damage your health!