Personally I can't see the appeal of smoking. I understand many people do it, people in my family do, but I can't understand why.
I like to be polite and considerate, but I have addressed things in ways I'm not proud of. My friends and I went to a basketball game at university one night. As we were approaching the entrance we saw cheerleaders standing outside, as we got closer we noticed they were standing right next to the doors smoking. Here is where I broke my usual polite pattern; I started coughing before I even caught the scent, which actually turned into real coughing as I passed through the haze.
I know this was a very passive aggressive choice I was annoyed by what I consider rude. They were standing right next to the public doors everyone walks through.
I'm not a smoker and I'm sorry if I've offended you, but it's your choice to smoke and mine not to, so I feel like it's only considerate to do so away from where general public traverses.
When people push things on others I don't agree with it, and I'm not trying to push my views right now, I'm simply presenting my thoughts to which you're welcome to respond as I think I am quite open minded.
In fact I have no issue with people choosing to smoke, it's their choice. People often bring up health risks as a reason to quit, which my grandfather passed away from lung cancer likely connected to smoking. However, almost everything can kill you these days and my aunt, who was honestly the healthiest person I knew, also passed away from cancer. She didn't smoke and we were all baffled when we found out she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
I, however, do have a small problem with the tobacco companies and the creation of flavoured products.
The only thing I've ever come close to trying are those flavoured cigarillos from a few years ago, which in my opinion actually smell quite good. That, what I find to be the disgusting, smell of cigarette smoke was masked by the flavours injected into the product.
I never did try it, but I could see how it would appeal to youth. As soon as you add flavours to something it's like enticing youth to try them, it's almost like turning whatever habit it is into candy.
Flavoured nicotine was eventually banned, but not all flavoured tobacco products came under this law. Chewing tobacco, can still contain flavours in Saskatchewan, though Ontario is looking at legislation to ban.
The new fad beginning to develop are electric cigarettes. They are quite a new fad, but because of this Canada has banned e-cigarettes from being filled with nicotine. They aren't sure of the long term affects and will need to amend their ban on flavoured nicotine products to include them.
The main reason for the ban of nicotine in e-cigarettes includes encouraging young people to start smoking, while also appearing as a "healthy" alternative to smoking.
Essentially an e-cigarette is an item that is powered by a battery. It heats the liquid inside, which contains nicotine and flavouring. As it heats the liquid is turned into vapour and thus the user is able to smoke without the cancer causing chemicals. The problem is that this product hasn't been around long enough and has not been tested by Health Canada to determine if this is actually true.
At the moment people are simply able to buy flavours and smoke these through the e-cigarette so long as there is no nicotine within the flavour cartridge, which to me might make smoking more appealing to youth as they may try this, then switch to actual cigarettes, though I could be wrong.
There is one positive to e-cigarettes, however, and that is how people tout the item for helping them quit smoking. The amount of nicotine, as it is allowed in the States, can be controlled. This means people who are addicted and trying to quit are able to slowly decrease the amount of nicotine they are taking in thereby slowly helping ween them off, while allowing people to keep up habits of going out for a smoke even if they are no longer taking in nicotine.
