Re: I smoke for my mental health


"Lonely Sausage" <Parks@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mn.7be17d7562d7787b.68942@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On July 1 2007, the most grotesque piece of social engineering will begin
in England: the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, imposed easily
by a political and media elite. They think it will lead to healthier
people and a cleaner atmosphere. They believe they can change people
easily. The science of marketing has been absorbed by them and they think
they can control everybody. I don't think they can. People will stay at
home and do drugs instead - legal and illegal.

I have lived in California for a number of years. They started smoking
bans, but they didn't affect smokers that much. In California you move
around in your own private space. If one goes to a public space, say the
opera or Disney Hall, then because the climate is ideal the smoker can
just step outside, at all times of the year. Many restaurants have gardens
and the bans have never really bothered me. But something else has
happened in California since the bans came in, unreported by the media,
and it took me a while to notice because I have spent the past seven years
working in England.

The amount of drugs advertised on television tells me what has replaced
tobacco (although 20% still smoke): painkillers, Prozac and
antidepressants, mostly prescription drugs - you just tell the doctor what
you need. When prescription drugs are advertised in the press there is
always a lot of small print listing side effects, and on television you
get a speedy talking voice listing the side effects. You perhaps hear one
word in four - paralysis, diarrhoea, death, headaches. I expect it all to
come here. Drugs (legal and illegal) are the world's largest business, and
one can understand why, since they make us feel better.

I know about fanatical anti-smokers - my father was one of the first
(although his eldest son has outlived him and smoked until he was 70, and
I'm still smoking at almost 70 - indeed, my birthday is nine days after
the ban). I smoke for my mental health. I think it's good for it, and I
certainly prefer its calming effects to the pharmaceutical ones (side
effects unknown).

Well, you say, smoking has dreadful side effects. Certainly on some
people, but not on all. So we should ask the British Medical Association
to explain Denis Thatcher smoking Senior Service (unfiltered) and dying at
88, or Kurt Vonnegut living till 84 after smoking Pall Mall cigarettes for
70 years. What is the explanation? Nobody seems to ask and no one gives
any explanation.

In the late 90s the ex-mighty New York Times was very anti-tobacco. I kept
writing letters to them. None was published. When Deng Xiaoping, the
Chinese leader, died at the age of 92, there was an obituary in the New
York Times. Three days later there was the most foolish letter which said
that Mr Deng was a very bad example to the young because he always had a
Panda cigarette in his hand or mouth.

I was appalled that they had printed this, and wrote to them suggesting Mr
Deng had lived a very long life - how long do you expect people to live? -
and the logic of his argument would be that Adolf Hitler was a very good
example for the young as he didn't smoke. It wasn't published, and I began
to realise the New York Times was no longer a serious newspaper. After
that I was sceptical about everything I read in newspapers.

Meanwhile in England, the press, without tobacco advertising, sided with
the anti-smokers. The BBC made itself "smoke-free" and I realised how
sinister this was. The BBC's problem, which won't go away, is that there
is no neutral viewpoint. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is part of the
basis of the mathematics that led to the computer, but it also stated that
the observer affects the observed - no one is neutral. The BBC used to
claim that it was neutral, but now it is part of a massive social
engineering project paid for by its listeners and viewers. It is against a
group of 12 million people who choose to smoke - not very fair.

The British press might be quite lively, but it is also pathetically
childish. I take little in it seriously, and when I am in Bridlington I
only glance at newspapers. They are not sceptical enough, which is why I
see them now as part of the social engineering. No one asks what the
consequences will be - all will be good, they childishly think.

The Guardian says that the ban has been a "success" in Scotland. What do
they mean by "success"? Pub takings have gone down, some pubs have closed.
But surely the ban would only have been a "success" if the non-smokers had
been flocking to the pubs. They have not.

What do I think? You're living in a madhouse, David ... Actually, I've
always thought that, but I have a love for the surface of the Earth that
is an escape from the mean-spirited and dreary people who seem to have
taken over England.

The ban won't affect me much. I live very privately. I'm not very social -
I'm too deaf, and in the world I have created I will smoke. I've no wish
to meet politicians - most of them have the most odious ideas about
people. England is full of big pushers of the coming pill society, and
we've lost a sense of messiness - no longer any Delight in Disorder here
(a careless shoestring in whose tie/ I see a wild civility/Do more bewitch
me than when art/is too precise in every part, Robert Herrick).

Two months ago I started the largest painting I've ever done: 15ft x 40ft.
The moment I began I found myself running up the stairs (with a ***) and
realised some people are more in tune with a life force than others.

I can't be the only voice like this. In England people should speak up
more, defend themselves, but it's hard against all the forces at work. Two
million anti-smoking signs are going up on July 1, including inside
Westminster Abbey. The uglification of England is under way by people with
no vision. I detest it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2079616,00.html#article_continue



It's been like that in Scotland for a while now. I don't mind it, hangovers
seem less intense after a night out at a club, the downside is that you can
smell everyone's farts and b.o. when at said club. But I certainly won't
miss waking up with a stinking hangover then retching at the smell of stale
cigs off my clothes and body. I think that instead of smoking people should
be encouraged to masturbate more frequently and there should be "wanking
rooms" at work. It's a lot healthier than smoking. In fact, masturbation in
public should be encouraged, if just for the comedy value.


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