Why do smokers continue to smoke?
Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 15:33 E-cigarettes are 'much less harmful than smoking' and smokers should be encouraged to quit or switch to vaping.
That was the message of last week's Royal College of Physicians report.
Given the lack of evidence that e-cigarettes pose any serious risk to the user and the frequent abuse and disinformation hurled at smokers, why would anyone choose not to switch?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting smokers should switch. I've been around smokers long enough to know that many enjoy the ritual, the taste or simply the act of inhaling or exhaling smoke from a combustible cigarette.
I'm just curious what smokers think of bodies like the RCP urging you to switch to e-cigarettes and what reason/s you would give for sticking with combustibles when every public health campaigner in the world seems intent on denormalising and stigmatising you for that decision.
I asked this question on the Friends of Forest Facebook page. Here are some of the responses:
EJ wrote:
I don't smoke as an addict. I do it for enjoyment and don't smoke most of the time. Maybe once a month. I think the fact that MANY smokers live to 90+ is enough evidence to debunk whatever theories people have about smoking being a cause of premature death or chronic illness. My grandma was on about 40 a day and lived to 85. It's far more about the hand you've been dealt than anything else.
JB wrote:
Seen as a way to quit smoking, yes, sure, e-cigs are probably the best method out there but it's just not for me. I don't like e-cigs, that's about it. It feels nothing like burning tobacco. I will carry on smoking my moderate dozen cigarettes a day, the occasional pipe or cigar, for as long as possible. I hope to reach 70 that way. If not, never mind.
JN wrote:
Why would I want to switch to a product that hasn't been tested long term? I know the risks of smoking cigarettes. (I don't believe all the bullshit.) I enjoy smoking and have done for 50+ years and have no intention of giving up :)
LB wrote:
I tried e-cigs for a couple of weeks but they gave me a tight chest and sore throat so went back to rollies. Better the devil you know. It's entirely up to the individual. It works for people I know but not for me. I didn't like the feel of the plastic filter either. Been smoking for 35 years. I know the risks. It's my life therefore my choice.
SB wrote:
I smoke. I enjoy it. Have smoked for 46 years. Switched to roll-ups due to cost about 25 years ago. Use an e-cig when I can't (not allowed to) smoke. Fed up with being told what to do and told what and how to think. I don't take any notice.
MS wrote:
I tried e-smoking. I didn't like the taste. It's not what I want from smoking. I also need the routine of hand rolling my cigarette.
I can't remember where I read it (it may have been on this blog) but someone else commented that they like the fact that the time taken to smoke a cigarette is finite - approximately five minutes - unlike vaping.
The elephant in the room is of course the issue of addiction. Do you smoke because you're addicted, because it's a habit, because you enjoy it, or is it a combination of these and other factors?
Further thoughts welcome.
Update: Over on Facebook HJ has added this comment:
I enjoyed smoking. I expected it to be the last thing I would ever give up. I feel so grateful now that I was one of those who took to vaping as a fish to swimming. I had no intention of quitting but just became aware that I enjoyed vaping more than tobacco – and I had been a smoker for 45 years! Strange world.
Vive la différence, I say.
Reader Comments (16)
Why do I smoke? Because I enjoy it. Life so very, very short and all the nannying in the world will not extend it one jot.
I, you, we will all be dead in 50 years and no one will give a care for our passing or even remember us.
So eat drink be merry & have a smoke for tomorrow we die.
That's my attitude and I'm sticking to it.
Plus the whole vaping thing it really is turning smokers in to a ball to be bounced between public health, government, the vaping producers, big pharma and the tobacco companies.
They all just use smokers to their own benefit.
As a vaper I don't think the majority of smokers will ever switch to vaping. If vaping takes over from smoking it will most likely be a consequence of the next generation of would be smokers being diverted into vaping. The only thing that will stop that happening is public health.
But as I have always said, smoking is a habit not a hobby. For too many smokers the hassle of dealing with ecigarettes outweighs the benefits. Which is fair enough, there is a lot more to life than the obsession with health.
Very shrewd analysis, Paul. I'm not a smoker but I think you're right on all counts.
Interesting, Simon. This addresses what is a bit of a conundrum for my forthcoming paper, on the basic economics of THR. The most simplified model shows "switching must be welfare enhancing for most everyone"; the relaxation of the simplifications recognizes that this must not actually be true for everyone because, well, reality. Missing is a concrete story about why (standard economics approach: that is their preference, and that is all we need to say about it). I am not sure this -- and everything else I know -- gets me very close to the point of knowing what more to say about it, but the answer must lie down this path.
Somewhat related: Would you be willing to do more research? For those smokers who self-identify as "addicted", ask them to explain exactly what they mean by that, with the particular caveat "does that also describe other things that you really want to do often (whether it be every hour, day, or week), and if not, what makes those different from addiction?"
The beautiful aroma of tobacco is the attraction for me. Addiction doesn't come into it. Why would you vape when you can have the real thing !
That's just the problem: there is no universally-accepted, truly scientific definition of 'addiction'. It's a slippery concept and is used to stigmatize people or to take away the 'problems' of free choice and personal responsibility.
I smoke because it's a pleasure and a comforting ritual (or rather, one component of a comforting ritual, the other being a drink). These things are extremely important to human beings and yet with antismokers and public health bullies, they do not even enter the picture. This is one of the many things that cause smokers not to trust them. Also, the more obviously bullying and obviously dishonest the Antis get, the more smokers (or some of us anyway) are going to defy them.
I'm just curious what smokers think of bodies like the RCP urging you to switch to e-cigarettes
I think they have little idea of the plant chemistry and have only ever heard of nicotine.
If nicotine was addictive nicotine patches would work.
what reason/s you would give for sticking with combustibles when every public health campaigner in the world seems intent on denormalising and stigmatising you for that decision
In brief, my best guess would be the natural antidepressant recently found in tobacco smoke during Parkinson's research, 2,3,6-trimethyl-1,4-naphthoquinone. It seems to come from the Solanesol in nightshade plants that they always refer to as "tar".
There has to be some reason that I can still stay cheerful under such an onslaught.
Or was that answer too literal?
I both smoke and vape and the vaping bit is down to manners and avoiding unwanted confrontations because I am enjoying a cigarette. My lifetime partner hates smoking anywhere near her but I reserve my right to smoke in one room in the house. Elsewhere I vape. I vape in the car with her, inside the pub and on visits to the homes of others. When alone, I much prefer a cigarette and I find I relish it all the more when the opportunity arises to smoke in peace. When I go to dinner with others, regardless of the good company, I like to slip out alone for a real smoke even when the restaurant permits vaping.
Lighted tobacco is the real thing, (for me), whereas an e-cig is an emulator. It serves its purpose wherever hatred for the smoker is whipped up but I would be unhappy if cigarettes were ever denied me. If I ever decide to truly quit smoking for whatever reason, I might study the various kinds of e-cigs available to find the one that leaves me the least empty.
Personally I have difficulty with e-cigs. They make me cough and are cold. They do not emulate a ciggie and as such I don't use them. I just can't enjoy them.
Seeing as my local council has banned them from all their venues I don't see why I should embrace them anyway.
I enjoy a smoke just like a vapor enjoys a vape. We all have to go outside into the city centre fumes leaving the safe air behind.
Oh, by the way - I love tomatoes.
“ ... what smokers think of bodies like the RCP urging you to switch to e-cigarettes...”
Well, it’s just more of the “same old, same old,” isn’t it? To paraphrase the inimitable Mandy Rice-Davies: “Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” Up until e-cigarettes came along, they were “urging” us to switch to nicotine patches. Before patches, they were “urging” us to switch to tablets or gum. Before those, they were “urging” us to go Cold Turkey. They’ll basically “urge” us to use whatever the latest gizmo is which they think will be the Big Breakthrough that they’ve been waiting for that smokers just won’t be able to resist. Because we’re all just soooooo keen to do exactly what that bunch of people tell us, aren’t we? After all, they like us so much, how could we refuse?
“ ... and what reason/s you would give for sticking with combustibles ...”
Pretty much all the reasons given by other commenters – I don’t enjoy e-cigarettes (the description by John of “emptiness” perfectly describes my experience of vaping), I don’t like the taste, I can’t inhale properly without choking and spluttering every other puff, I actually don’t particularly like the sickly-sweet smell of them, and I find them “clunky” and “gadgety,” too long, and oddly heavy and unbalanced to hold, and, finally, I actually think they’re a bit embarrassing - vapers always remind me of a little kid pretending to smoke like a grown-up with a “pretend” cigarette. Plus of course, irritating the hell out of a body like the RCP which has made it perfectly clear that it hates us to the core for refusing to do as we are told is a definite bonus.
Oh, and I think it was me (although others may have mentioned it, too), who cited the “beginning, middle and end” of smoking a cigarette being absent from the experience of vaping.
I'd agree with Joe in that the definition of 'addiction' is a very subjective one. To me, addiction means a physical dependence on something where the deprivation of that substance results in severe withdrawal symptoms. Thus, the addict who has his regular fix every six hours or whatever will find that if that six hour point happens to be in the middle of the night, then he will wake to address the situation. Stretch the period to eight or ten hours, and a degree of desperation will start to set in.
A pack a day smoker will be smoking a cigarette more or less hourly, so you could say that his regimen is to get his fix every hour. Which would mean that if he was truly addicted, he would wake every hour during the night to have a cigarette. I have never known any smoker who wakes during the night for the sole purpose of smoking a cigarette. Indeed, I think most smokers are like me, insofar as when I wake in the morning, a cigarette is the last thing on my mind. I'll wash, clean my teeth, drink an OJ, make (real) coffee for myself and my wife (all of which takes about half an hour) and then sit down in front of the computer to read the news and drink my coffee. Only then will I light my first cigarette of the day.
Addicted? That's hardly how a desperate addict is likely to deal with his addiction.
Likewise, when I fly long-haul and I'm forbidden to smoke for some bizarre reason, I'm not crawling up the walls desperate for a cigarette. I'm mightily pissed off at the stupidity of banning smoking in the first place, but that's another issue. I also refuse to go into those disgustingly inadequate 'smoking booths' when I arrive at my destination, preferring to wait until I've cleared customs and immigration and can sit in comfort at a bar and have a beer / coffee and a cigarette. Again, not exactly the behaviour of an 'addict'.
No, smokers are categorically not 'addicts' in the real sense of the word. It's an enjoyable habit. Anti-smokers love to use the word 'addict' because of its pejorative associations, but their use of the word isn't valid. It's just another example of their vindictive attitude to smokers.
As for why I prefer smoking to vaping, it's quite simple really. Tobacco is a natural product with a wonderful taste and aroma. E-juice is a chemical construct which can never emulate tobacco. The reason there are so many weird flavours available is because try as they may, the producers just can't get the tobacco flavour right, so better to not even try. I've tried a number of 'tobacco' flavours, and they all taste disgusting. When I use my e-cig now, I just use menthol flavoured juice. For those who have taken to vaping, well, good luck to them. Different strokes for different folks. But for me, I just prefer the real thing. Oh, and vaping makes me cough, too, which smoking doesn't.
If it was just about the nicotine, then I'd fail to see the difference between smoking and vaping. However, I don't smoke for that or vaping would suit and it doesn't. Tobacco tastes better so even low nicotine home grown is more delicious than ecig chemicals.
For me it's the difference between Tetley's tea, which I don't like, and Yorkshire Tea, which like the eviiiiiiiiil tobacco companies, has me sooooo addicted I cannot drink any other brand - except Twingings which is good enough for Her Majesty so it's a good alternative for me if Yorkshire Tea isn't available.
Why else do I smoke? I love the craft of rolling a cigarette. Sometimes I roll them without smoking them just for the pleasure of putting one together. If tailored cigs were all that were available, I'd break them up and roll them anyway.
Why else do I smoke? I've smoked a literal lifetime except for the 8 years after I was born. I distrust the smokerphobic anti-smoker industry which doesn't care about my health but only the creation of their intolerant world without smokers.
They say smoking changes your genes so I perhaps I am genetically predisposed to smoke and quitting rather than smoking moderately, would, I think, kill me.
Will it give me emphysema in later life - even though I'm a borderline pensioner already? I doubt it. My dad, a lifelong smoked died aged 75 from lung disease. My father in law, a lifelong never smoker but a road worker, died aged 75 of lung disease in exactly the same way as my dad.
Smoke or not smoke, death will come to us all. I smoke because I want to enjoy my life, smoking is part of me, my life, and how I live the life that was given to me and no one else, and it says something about who I am - a rebel, a risk taker, an adventurer, and an individual, and lately, because of the sheer number of attacks, exclusion, prejudice, and nastiness from the anti-smoker industry, smoking also makes me a very angry person.
Yes Pat i'm an angry person now and soon i fear will be a law breaker.
You won't be a law breaker TG. The truth always prevails.
It may take time but justice always eventually prevails. We are a mere blip in the scale of humanity unless the perfect human being (and sod everyone else) is the agenda of the New World Order.
I'm approaching 50 now, but always remember the Sci-Fi series Star-Trek. Leaders slaughtered those that weren't perfect. One had a finger missing and was slaughtered.
Looks like governments are following nanny states rather than let us live on the short time we have on this planet. They only accept the perfect human being.
We are being pushed into criminalisation in readiness for when they make the act of smoking and sale of tobacco illegal. Make no mistake, this is the end game.
The prison ban is for when we are forced inside and then forced to quit. Hopefully I will have moved to a much less fascist country by then. I won't spend my old age in fear of smokerphobic thugs.
I continue to smoke because I enjoy it. No pronouncement from any politician or paid from tax quango is going to stop me and to punish the politicians, I refuse to vote for any of them. One political party is not against smokers. These disgusting paid from tax quangos must be axed along with the bullying nanny state. There is nothing wrong with smoking. The political experiment of trying to get rid of a product does not work, it backfires. I do not trust heath quangos.