Cigarette ヽ(#`Д´)凸

Aside from my grandmother - who died last year as a result of chaining unfiltered cigarettes for nigh on half a century - my family is entirely non-smoking. Without counting school lectures on the dangers involved, I had no exposure to the habit as a kid. I can't remember ever not being aware of the health risks. I've seen a string of new laws creep in over the past few years - laws that irritated me even before I started smoking. The ban on advertising, the ban on indoor smoking, the legal age for buying tobacco products being raised to 18 and now the impending (and frighteningly stupid) ban on displaying cigarettes in shops.

Despite all this, both my brother and I smoke. Why? Blame the public school thing. It's a pleasurable activity. We both acknowledge the health effects. We don't smoke in the presence of people who find it offensive. I can't see any rational justification for lowering your opinion of someone as a whole on the basis of their being a smoker. Judge people on their own merits, not on some stupid fucking niggling thing you disagree with.

Simply put: don't be a prick. It's not cool.

I'm not sure what's worse - the government telling me what's bad for me, or self-righteous fucks getting antsy about something that needn't affect them at all.

Jam it back in, in the dark.