Marbreds

The bottle above is the amount of carcinogenic liquid one-pack-a-day smokers put into their lungs in a year’s time. I am sorry but this is fucking gross. Data collected using a smoke-simulator mimicking a typical smokers puffing patterns (source: Joel Spitzer, 2001). If a diluted form of this tar swabbed onto the skin of mice, 60% of the mice develop cancer of the skin inside one year. The good news is that smoking steadily declines in Britain; the bad news that the 20-24 age-group most active puffers at 32% their population (vs. overall 27%) (source: Cancer Research UK)

There are socio-economic differences too, not surprisingly - Manual workers start to smoke at an earlier age, with 48% of men and 40% of women in routine and manual occupations regularly smoking by 16 compared with 33% of men and 28% of women in managerial and professional occupations. Unlike yesteryear, smokers cannot pretend uneducated and every packet in the UK carries: "SMOKING KILLS" in caps. So why do we do it?

Well, if I recall from my yuf, smoking the only drug that serves as a relaxant or a stimulant depending on one's mood. It goes great with reading or late night studying when concentration required. Marbreds are cool and express one's uniqueness or contempt. It also the perfect mini-break and takes awkwardness from a conversation given its fixed timing. Now, that all gone and I do feel sorry for the poor slobs who huddle outside their building when it's raining or worse taking hits from their dirty, deathly habit. But at least they can choose to do so - this no place for Big Brother.

"The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide."
-- Kurt Vonnegut