Why do intelligent people smoke tobacco?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by CarpetDiem, Oct 25, 2008.

Page 1 of 5
  1. CarpetDiem

    CarpetDiem Burnin' hours, season days Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    383
    Hey, no condemnations here, just a question from a sucker.

    I'm trying to give up (again) and am finding it bloody hard, but have confidence that I will ultimately succeed.

    I know I'm not alone and we all know the science and costs both financial and physical, so why do we do it? Can we claim to be intelligent when most people don't smoke?
     
    CarpetDiem, Oct 25, 2008
    #1

  2. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    Why do intelligent people drive cars ? Why do they drink ?
    Even, why do some drink and drive ?

    The answer is that taking these risks has little or nothing to do with the kind of intelligence I.Q. tests measure.
     
    Enmos, Oct 25, 2008
    #2

  4. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. CarpetDiem

    CarpetDiem Burnin' hours, season days Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    383
    So do you smoke too?

    Cool avatar change by the way; sick of monkeys?
     
    CarpetDiem, Oct 25, 2008
    #3

  6. Guest Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    Yep, thanks & yep

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Enmos, Oct 25, 2008
    #4
  8. Simon Anders

    Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,535
    because the little driver in the brain is just a small part of you. in fact he or she is often not the driver, even. sort of a concerned (hopefully) bystander.
     
    Simon Anders, Oct 25, 2008
    #5
  9. Repo Man

    Repo Man Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,955
    You'd probably get a better answer if you simply asked why people smoke.

    That has always been a mystery to me.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2008
    Repo Man, Oct 25, 2008
    #6
  10. MacGyver1968

    MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,028
    I started to smoke when I was teenager because I thought it would make me look older and cooler. This was also in a time when smoking was still socially acceptable. I hate being addicted to nicotine...it's like fucking chains. I'm constantly thinking about when I'm going to have my next smoke...and since the price of smokes has risen sharply in the last couple of years..it's purely a monetary issue now. I could make a car payment for what I spend on cigarettes.

    I want to quit...but I like to smoke...it gives me a reason to take a break from work, and it's comforting. If I'm going to quit, I really have to WANT to quit, or it just won't work.
     
    MacGyver1968, Oct 25, 2008
    #7
  11. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    I wish my friend that died of lung cancer would have quit or never started. He suffered a great deal of pain as well as his family along with him.
     
    cosmictraveler, Oct 25, 2008
    #8
  12. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Nicotine is a psychoactive drug, and like most psychoactive drugs, some people find the psychoactive effect so pleasant that they're willing to take the risk. This is called risk analysis and risk management, and in a culture where personal liberty is honored, consenting adults will have the right to perform their own risk analysis and risk management, so long as they cause no direct harm to others.

    The psychoactive effect of nicotine on the majority of users has been called a mood-leveler. If a person is too excited, to the point of being anxious, it will bring him down toward a median level. If a person is too depressed, it will bring him up toward a median level. In other words, it makes him feel normal, or at least what he imagines normal should feel like. For some people that is a difficult state to achieve, and they're willing to take a risk to create it artificially.

    Of course nicotine is arguably the most addictive of all popular drugs and almost certainly the most addictive of the traditional, naturally-occurring drugs. The punishment for changing your mind and deciding you'd rather go back to the way you were and find another way to deal with your emotional problems is draconian. Withdrawal symptoms for the addict are almost always a return to the unbalanced emotional state he was attempting to escape, often to a higher level (or lower, as the case may be) than he started, usually accompanied by irksome or downright unbearable physical discomfort. Moreover, nicotine addiction is one of the longest-lasting addictions yet encountered, with a median half-life measured in months (I'm not looking this up so I'm estimating very conservatively to make sure I'm not exaggerating) and for some people a nearly lifelong craving. The changes nicotine causes in the physiology of most addicts are very slow and difficult to reverse, and often never attenuate to a complete return to the pre-addictive state.

    So, to answer the question.

    Intelligent people smoke for the same reason average people or stupid people smoke. They feel an emotional imbalance and are willing to take a risk to achieve comfort.

    Intelligent people continue to smoke after realizing they would rather not, for the same reason average people or stupid people do the same thing: Nicotine is highly addictive. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that addiction to nicotine is the most difficult to quit of all popular drugs. I'd be interested to hear if anyone posting on this thread would dispute that hypothesis based on his own personal observations.

    I've known pot heads, alcoholics, speed freaks, acid lickers, barby dolls, coke snorters, caffeine junkies and freebasers. In each of those groups a higher percentage of the addicts have cleaned up and remained clean, than of the smokers I've known.

    For more on this subject, see The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs. Yes it was published in the 1970s when this type of research could be performed and published, but it's still the bible for most drugs that existed in that era. Most of the "research" done today is sponsored by the same government who told us Saddam had WMDs.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Oct 25, 2008
    #9
  13. skaught

    skaught The field its covered in blood Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,103
    I quit smoking about 10 months ago! I still have cravings very often. It does get better though. My girlfriends parents are heavy smokers, and I can't stand to be in their house! The smell is absolutely wretched. Every time I want a ciggy, I just think about the smell of their house, and the sound of their coughing. It pretty much scares the urge right out of me.
    If someone wants to quit anything, I strongly suggest support groups. There are tons of smoking cessation programs out there and most of the are pretty successful if you follow the program and do what they recommend doing to stay smoke free.
     
    skaught, Oct 25, 2008
    #10
  14. Mr. Hamtastic

    Mr. Hamtastic whackawhackado! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,492
    I smoke. I have tried to quit, multiple times, and I never start back because I crave what everyone talks about. There's this pain, like I imagine having a pinecone shoved down one's throat, and into your lungs, but it goes by in a blink. Invariably, that has brought me back. Also, there seems to be something to do with having a bowel movement. I smoke, I need to go poo. There is of course the fact that it's suicide, just slowly, which has its own appeal.

    Wait. Oh, you were talking to intelligent people. Crazy people do it for the reasons above. I hope you find intelligent people to ask.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Mr. Hamtastic, Oct 25, 2008
    #11
  15. steph02

    steph02 Registered Member

    Messages:
    8
    For those of you who are smokers, why did you start in the first place? I've only ever really heard the reason of peer pressure before, so why else do people do it?
     
    steph02, Oct 25, 2008
    #12
  16. Vkothii

    Vkothii Banned Banned

    Messages:
    3,674
    I guess an intelligent smoker finds more intelligent reasons to smoke than a dumb smoker.
    Mind you, they're still both addicted to nicotine, to the rush into the old brain cells of that wondrous chemical, that can kill you if too much gets into your brain, so you do it slowly.

    An intelligent smoker would reason that they've been dying since the day they were born, so what the hell?
     
    Vkothii, Oct 25, 2008
    #13
  17. lixluke

    lixluke Refined Reinvention Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,072
    Smoking causes brain damage. When you smoke, your brain gets addicted, and starts to crave it. Then you die.
     
    lixluke, Oct 25, 2008
    #14
  18. greenberg

    greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,811
    Because they overestimate their intelligence.
     
    greenberg, Oct 25, 2008
    #15
  19. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    LOL how do you figure that

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Do you think that they think they can outsmart cancer ?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Enmos, Oct 25, 2008
    #16
  20. greenberg

    greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,811
    Sure, or something to that effect.

    Some of them think that they will be able to live with cancer just fine; that it won't seriously affect their life; that other people who got cancer from smoking and who are now depressed and frustrated and are sorry excuses of persons are just really really stupid, but they, the intelligent, oh, they are so intelligent, they won't let that beast called cancer bring them down and make them stupid, oh no, they will endure last stage cancer with diginity and integrity, no, they are the intelligent ones, they won't poo their pants.
     
    greenberg, Oct 25, 2008
    #17
  21. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    That doesn't sound like intelligent people at all.. more like dumb people. Dumb and arrogant

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Enmos, Oct 25, 2008
    #18
  22. skaught

    skaught The field its covered in blood Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,103
    Enmos, you smoke???
     
    skaught, Oct 26, 2008
    #19
  23. Betrayer0fHope

    Betrayer0fHope MY COHERENCE! IT'S GOING AWAYY Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,311
    You started cause you wanted to, you keep on cause you can't stop. I might smoke, cause I wanna know what the big deal is. If I get addicted, hopefully some cute girl will make me stop.
     
    Betrayer0fHope, Oct 26, 2008
    #20
Page 1 of 5

Share This Page