Translation: we actually do stuff.
"Smokers are risk-takers"
Translation: we have more fun.
"Smokers more likely to binge drink, eat badly and face mental illness"
Translation: we don't listen to stupid government decrees.
"Smokers more likely to have girl babies"
Translation: girls are the product of disease and nasty habits.
With regards to the last item, if you have a good wife by your side, thank a smoker.
In 2007, 159,000 people in the US died from lung cancer. That same year, 43,000 people in the US died just from traffic accidents. An average of 3,500 people drowned in the US from having fun (not including boats). Hell, 1.7 million people die each year from traumatic head injuries. Are we going to make people wrap their heads in foam rubber now? So when you say lung cancer from smoking is preventable, look how many lives could be saved by taking away your car. Get over it.
Roughly 15% of all lung cancers occur in non-smokers, with another 50% in former smokers. That's fully 65% of lung cancers in people who don't currently smoke. Message: if you smoke, keep it up. Look at Gerry Garcia. He quit a 30-year addiction to heroin and was dead in two months. Oh, and there's absolutely no proof that second-hand smoke does anything. No study has ever shown a connection. Everything you think you know about second-hand smoke is all assumptions and bullshit (see Penn & Teller).
Here's a headline for you: PEOPLE DIE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
Yup, it's a proven fact. We all die. Most of us dies around 75 or so. That's it. Switch off. No more. A few lucky ones get up to 120 years, as many more get far less. But we all die. There is no such thing as a "preventable" death. In fact, let's look at those two things in closer proximity:
Everyone dies. There are "preventable" deaths.
Sorry, I don't buy the second proposition. In fact, I'm willing to bet smokers have less vitamin D deficiency, since they are forced two to three times a day to go out in the glorious sunshine and smoke while their counterparts sit in their cubicles under fluorescent light breathing formaldehyde from the carpet fumes. Who's smarter? Those who get a break a couple of times a day from the office grind, or those who whittle away their lives in drudgery? My votes for the smokers.
Honestly, it's not just smoking. There are people who spend their entire lives worrying about the risks they take and trying desperately to extend their share of life. My question is: Why? If you spend your whole life building cages around yourself so you can have a few more years of misery, what's the point? I'd rather enjoy it; take a few risks; get out there and see what's available on the menu. I wouldn't give up even one minute of laughing for a year of extra life. It's not worth it.
Those who bitch the loudest about smoking still get out of bed in the morning and drive to work. If you are so damned worried about preventing death, then stay in bed and leave the rest of us the hell alone! Live in a padded cage, never leave the house, and still die from natural disasters or some other "preventable" cause. In fact, anyone who lives in an earthquake/hurricane/tornado/flood zone, or near a volcano or sea shore, or even where the air isn't crystal sparkly clean should be forbidden to bitch about so-called "risky" behavior. Sorry bub, but you're just as stupid as the rest of us.
The next time you want to crab at someone about their "risky" behavior, take a full and complete stock of all (and I do mean all) the risks you take on a daily basis. If you can honestly say that you do not take any unwarranted or "preventable" risks with your life, then I'll listen.
Otherwise, shut the hell up and let us living people live in peace.
If your argument is that you take certain risks to enjoy a certain quality of life, and not just quantity, then you have negated your entire argument against anything I do. Add to that the fact that it is my damn life to do with whatever I please further puts your argument on the curb waiting for trash day.
Think about all those rabid non-smokers in their designer togs bouncing along major thoroughfares in major cities. You're going to die - probably of lung cancer from sucking in all that car exhaust. Idiot.
Give me a stogie and a fine brandy on the veranda any day. I'll probably live longer than Jim Fixx. All I have to do is make it to July of next year and I'll have gotten more life than he did with a hell of a lot less work.