Smoking

MARK ALEXANDER: Today marks two years and nine full months since I last smoked a cigarette. On April 10th, it will be three full years.

Naturally, I am proud of my achievement. But I must say in all honesty that giving up smoking has been a mixed blessing. I have had no cravings. None! But it goes without saying that for a lifelong smoker as I was — for most of my adult life, I smoked a pack a day — inevitably something is missing in my life. Being single, smoking used to keep me company.

Healthwise, certain things have improved. My blood pressure is much, much lower. So much lower, in fact, that I have had to halve my medications for hypertension. Truth to tell, I am no longer hypertensive; in fact, I am quite the opposite. I have to be careful that my blood pressure is high enough!

My eyesight has also improved. Greatly! I have never had bad eyesight, but I used to have to use spectacles for reading. Since quitting smoking, I am now able to read a book, or computer screen, without reading glasses! Not bad, considering my age, I would say. Generally, I do use ready readers when reading a book, though, or when at the computer. Not because I really need them, but out of sheer laziness. Simply put, it is easier that way. I can’t remember the day I used my prescription reading glasses! Two years ago, maybe.

The worst thing about giving up smoking, as far as I am concerned, apart from the lost pleasure — I used to love a smoke — is the fact that since quitting, I have gained weight. Smoking kept my weight stable and kept me relatively slim. Since quitting, despite having a very small appetite and despite eating a very healthy diet, almost sugar-free and low in carbohydrates, I have still gained weight. This is the worst thing about being a non-smoker as far as I am concerned.

Naturally, by not smoking, I have not had to spend any money on cigarettes. That should have been a significant saving. However, my quitting coincided with a time in which energy prices and food prices have skyrocketed, so I can’t honestly say that I have felt the financial benefit of quitting.

For those of you who still smoke, enjoy the cigarettes you smoke. My quitting has in no way turned me into an anti-smoker. In fact, quite the contrary. I am very much for smokers’ rights. I deplore the current war on smoking and smokers. I hate the way that smokers have been attacked at every turn. Will I ever smoke again? Who knows? I have no intention of ever doing so. But I also know that it is very unwise ever to rule anything out in life. And to my way of thinking, people these days do far, far worse things than enjoy the smoking of a cigarette. So, if cigarettes are your thing, all I can say is this: Keep on smoking! Keep on enjoying them.

© Mark Alexander
All Rights Reserved

Anatomy of an Addiction Industry | DW Documentary

Dec 13, 2024 | Smoking has an image problem, because everyone knows: it can kill you. That’s why tobacco multinationals are increasingly focused on e-cigarettes, enticing consumers with bright colors and fruity flavors. The target group: young people.

The World Health Organization says smoking results in the death of eight million people every year. That’s one reason why you’ll now often hear tobacco companies promoting the switch to e-cigarettes, with claims that these are less harmful to our health. It’s first and foremost young people who believe the industry’s promises, thereby taking the first step on the road to addiction. After all, nicotine is an addictive substance. And although it may taste better than tobacco, puffing on a vape is still going to get you hooked in precisely the same way as smoking a regular cigarette. The film investigates the cynicism of an industry that not only accepts this, but also deliberately aims for it.


The war on smoking and smokers continues unabated! – © Mark Alexander

Dr Suneel Dhand: Why Sugar Has Become Worse Than Cigarette Smoking

Sep 26, 2023 | Some disturbing hard truths we have to face in 2023.

Labour ‘Will Drop Plans for Outdoor Smoking Ban’

THE TELEGRAPH: Policy set to be axed after industry opposition amid fears for pubs, according to reports

Plans to ban smoking outside pubs are reportedly being dropped after opposition from the hospitality industry.

Proposals leaked earlier this year suggested the Labour Government would ban smoking in some outdoor areas, such as at restaurants and hospitals, to improve public health.

Concerns were raised over the new rules, which could include bans in beer gardens and outside stadiums.

The Guardian reported that Downing Street is now blocking the ban on outdoor smoking, citing one official who called it an “unserious policy”.

No 10 was understood to be watering down the plans, according to The Sun. » | Telegraph Reporters | Friday, October 25, 2024

This is good news. Now Labour should go one step further and abandon that ridiculous, draconian, undemocratic, illiberal generational smoking ban. In a world in which so many young people are into all sorts of extremely unhealthy and damaging drugs like cocaine and pink cocaine, it makes no sense whatsoever. Especially since increasingly fewer young people take up cigarette smoking anyway. – © Mark Alexander

Why the Young and Cool Are Taking Up Smoking

SP!KED: Young adults have finally found a way to resist the miserable diktats of our nannying elites.

Smoking, if you haven’t noticed, is suddenly cool again. ‘Is smoking making a comeback?’, fretted the Guardian last week. In the paper’s characteristically joyless tone, it reported that models at a recent runway event in Norway had strutted the catwalk cigarette-in-hand. We also learn that there’s even a popular Instagram page called ‘Cigfluencer’, which is dedicated to sharing photographs of the rich and famous having a cheeky toke. The Bear star Jeremy Allen White, pop sensations Dua Lipa and Charli XCX, and fashion model Bella Hadid are some of the A-listers who have recently been papped fag in hand – all people in their twenties or early thirties who ought to know better, in the Guardian’s eyes.

When walking the streets of a city like London, it’s hard not to get the impression that the humble dart is enjoying a comeback among the youth. You can see the evidence for yourself at almost every pub or café: hordes of young people lighting up like it’s the Sixties and dressing like the Nineties. Smoking is what Gen Z might call a ‘vibe’. » | Hugo Timms | Monday, August 19, 2024

My visitors will know that I have been calling for smoking to be made cool again for a very long time. I must have had my nose in the air! Even though I no longer smoke, I am sick to death of reading about, and listening to, health freaks telling us how we should live our lives and what we should do, and shouldn't. I have always lived by the adage 'live and let live' and I shall continue to do so. Life is a journey. It behoves us all to enjoy that journey. We never know when our time is up. – © Mark Alexander

Black Market Tobacco Floods Australian Market | Investigations | SBS The Feed

Mar 3, 2016 | As cigarette prices have risen, illegal tobacco or chop-chop is being imported into the country in increasing amounts. The Feed went undercover with Customs to see how hard it was to buy.

I’ll say nothing. I think you will know what I think of this sh**! – © Mark Alexander

ForestOnline : Mark Littlewood In Conversation With Simon Clark

May 28, 2019 | On 16th May 2019, to mark the 40th anniversary of the smokers' group FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, spoke to Forest director Simon Clark

Passive smoking is a load of nonsense! — © Mark Alexander

Naughty and Nice; Sexy and Cool…

… a source of great pleasure with each and every draw!
Many thanks to Nona DeAnda on Pinterest for this delightful photo.

Cool Is as Cool Does

One young, manly, handsome, pensive gentleman! No piercings! No tattoos! Just a cigarette! No other adornments necessary!
Many thanks to Sohrab on Pinterest for this beautiful photograph.

New Zealand Smoking Ban Scrapped by Government in Shock Reversal - BBC News

Nov 27, 2023 | New Zealand's new government says it plans to scrap the nation's world-leading smoking ban to fund tax cuts, a reversal strongly criticised by health experts.

The legislation, introduced under the previous Jacinda Ardern-led government, would have banned cigarette sales next year to anyone born after 2008.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in New Zealand, and the policy had aimed to stop young generations from picking up the habit.


Some common sense on smoking from a government at last! This generational smoking ban was both draconian and undemocratic. It was a hare-brained idea from the very start.

I write as an ex-smoker. I gave up smoking successfully in April 2022. But even so, I am implacably opposed to banning cigarette smoking for future generations. This ban is a socialist-style policy. Boy! Don’t socialists like to interfere in people's private lives! Socialists and people like Rishi Sunak! We in the UK need a policy reversal on this stupid ban as well.

There are far worse things for young people to do than enjoy a smoke. Taking drugs, for example. Only last week, I posted a DW documentary on the problems that Germany is facing with cocaine use. (Click here to watch the hair-raising documentary.) Truly, if the worst a person does in this life twixt cradle and grave is enjoy a cigarette and a drink of alcohol, then I would say that he/she is doing pretty well. I really am sick and tired of this obsession with smoking and smokers and I am also sick and tired of the Nanny State poking its nose in people's private lives. Have people forgotten that it is healthy to have some pleasure from life? Who the hell wants to live forever anyway, and end up in an old people's home, ga-ga, and being fed by some nurse? There is such a thing as enjoying the journey of life. More power to the new New Zealand government which has had the courage to swim against the tide and overturn Jacinda Adern's stupid law. – © Mark Alexander

The left-wing press is having convulsions over this ban reversal:

New Zealand scraps world-first smoking ‘generation ban’ to fund tax cuts: Health experts say axing plan to block sales of tobacco products to next generation will cost thousands of lives »

New Zealand smoking ban: Health experts criticise new government's shock reversal: New Zealand's new government says it plans to scrap the nation's world-leading smoking ban to fund tax cuts. »

Smoking Is Sexy. Smoking Is Cool. Smoking Is Pleasurable. Cigarettes Are Not Cocaine.

Many thanks to Pinterest for this great photo of this handsome smoker.
STOP this war on smoking. Smoking is still one of the daily pleasures of life for so many people. And bring those taxes on tobacco and cigarettes down precipitously! A.S.A.P.

Smoking Is So Sexy. Vaping Will Never Be Able to Replace It.

Many thanks to Pinterest for this great photo of this handsome smoker.
So let’s make smoking cool again! Let’s help put an end to this stupid war on smoking, smokers and pleasure! Many of the politicians are on drugs. A cigarette is harmless by comparison. Fie on these politicians! They want to take the joy out of life. Sie wollen dem Leben die Freude nehmen! Ils veulent retirer la joie de la vie !

This Is a Picture Especially for the Undemocratic Prime Minister of New Zealand. (I Think Her Name Is Jacinda Ardern.) | Reupload

I hope she fails in her ridiculous, autocratic, extreme anti-smoking policy. She is known to have once been a person who enjoyed cannabis, yet she has a visceral dislike of tobacco. Clearly, she is no history buff; otherwise she would know what the Prohibition (of alcohol) in the United States was like and how it ended. These do-gooders do more harm than the good they wish to bring about. Such people are pains in the butt! – © Mark Alexander
Many thanks to Wattpad on Pinterest for this truly delightful photo of a handsome young man enjoying a smoke which, of course, in a truly democratic country is his birthright.

New Zealand Implements Smoking Ban | 10 News First

Dec 9, 2021 | New Zealand will implement new legislation to phase out smoking. The ban will see anyone born since 2009 unable to purchase cigarettes.

Jacinda Ardern has got tyrannical tendencies. The silly woman should be stopped. (I speak as an ex-smoker.) Apparently, Ardern used to enjoy cannabis! That says it all. – © Mark Alexander

New Zealand smoking rates fall to lowest on record, but vaping on the rise: Overall smoking rate falls to 8% as country pursues goal of becoming smoke-free by 2025, but many may be switching to vaping instead »

I’m all for New Zealand giving tobacco a kicking – but don’t criminalise smoking: Making substances illegal has never worked, simply because it fails to address the reasons why people use them »

A Cool Smoker

Cool is as cool does.
Many thanks to smoker890.tumblr.com on Pinterest for this truly delightful image.

Denmark’s Delightful Queen

One just must love Queen Margrethe II for her political incorrectness! She just does her own thing regardless, just as everyone else should have the courage to do.
With many thanks to theroyalforums.com on Pinterest for this truly lovely image of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark enjoying a smoke.
Despite recent controversy, there's no royal more popular than Denmark's chain-smoking queen »

The Tobacco Conspiracy : Documentary

Nov 26, 2018 This France-Canada co-production goes behind the scenes of the huge tobacco industry, whose economic power has been expanding for five decades at the expense of public health. A gripping investigation covering three continents, Nadia Collot's film exposes the vast conspiracy of a criminally negligent industry that conquers new markets through corruption and manipulation. To confront the tobacco cartel, anti-smoking groups are organizing and scoring points, but the fight remains fierce. With ist diverse viewpoints, shocking interviews and riveting images, The Tobacco Conspiracy deftly defines the issues in a complex situation where private interests and the public good collide. Enlightening and engrossing, this documentary is a hard-hitting critique of an industry gone mad.

Reaching for That Pack of Smokes? You Aren’t the Only One

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Lots of people seem to be smoking again or more during the pandemic, if anecdotal evidence and preliminary sales figures for tobacco products are any measure.

“Good quality surveys operate at a lag,” said Vaughan W. Rees, the director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at Harvard University, referring to reliable smoking studies from institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But we are seeing interesting blips. The decline in tobacco sales has slowed in the past 10 months.”

While tobacco sales in the United States have generally fallen in recent decades (14 percent of Americans smoked in 2019, compared with nearly 21 percent in 2005, according to an annual report from the C.D.C. that tracks smoking rates), the decline flattened last year.

“The total volume of cigarettes sold in the U.S. typically declines by 3 or 4 percent,” said Adam Spielman, a managing director at Citi who follows the tobacco industry. “But in 2020, volume is flat and that’s a significant change, driven mostly by the fact that people have less things to spend money on right now.” Smokers also cited stress as a reason for lighting up. » | Monica Corcoran Harel | Saturday, February 6, 2021

Americans Smoking More Cigarettes during COVID-19 Pandemic

NEW YORK POST: Smoking has made a comeback as the stress of the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll — with cigarette sales rebounding in 2020.

Sales rose by 0.4 percent last year — reversing a decades-long steady decline — as people in lockdown lit up more often and vapers switched back to tobacco over health concerns, according to data released by Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc.

Bored Americans who weren’t able to travel or dine out regularly also had more disposable income to spend on smoke sticks, the tobacco maker said.

An FDA spokeswoman said changes in cigarette smoking can’t be tied to one specific event, but admitted the pandemic has played a role.

“COVID-19 has created a drastic change in daily life, including increased stress and anxiety, that may contribute to a smaller-than-expected reduction in cigarette sales,” she told the Wall Street Journal. » | Jesse O'Neill | Friday, January 19, 2021

Cigarette Smoking Makes Comeback During Coronavirus Pandemic

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Marlboro maker Altria says stimulus checks and e-cigarette restrictions are driving sales of traditional cigarettes

Americans are smoking more during the coronavirus pandemic because they are spending less on travel and entertainment and have more opportunities to light up. They are also switching back to traditional cigarettes from vaping devices in the wake of federal restrictions on e-cigarette flavors. Read more here (£/$) » | Jennifer Maloney | Tuesday, July 28, 2020