“Starts with a puff then life’s rough
Just one time is enough!
Don’t try to use it for cheap thrills!
It’s common sense! Smoking kills!”
The other day, there was this patient who was accepting and nodding his head for every instruction of mine much to my delight!
Normally they would be a little hesitant and confused and take information slowly!
Then cheerfully, he asked; “Doctor, can I smoke occasionally!?”
Happiness down the drain or gone like a puff of…do not say it!
read on!
I put my hands over my head and told him, “Which real doctor would ever tell you that smoking is ok!?”
If the patient was a young kid even then it could have been accepted but I would never expect an adult to ask me such a question!
The more tragic part is that this is not the first time!
In Bharat I guess no one would ask this to the doctor especially if he or she is a smoker because of those photos we see on top of the cigarette packets which have been mandated by the government!
Every movie screened in India also has the tobacco warning and so does any scene with the actors smoking or drinking! Drink will be dealt in another blog!
But in other countries the warning is either not so obvious or not even there which is maybe why these questions come! Smoking and now the horrible Vaping is actually started become a fad with even kids getting on the habit with the parents either not bothered or unable to do anything!
This actually shows the strength of the tobacco industry who are actually giving everyone one of the worst carcinogens in the world and charging the customers for it! Brilliant!
Even when tobacco was actually identified a possible cause of lung cancer in early medical literature of the late 1800s but only by a select few brave physicians!
The first published piece of literature attributing cigarette smoking to the growing incidence of lung cancer was in 1912, when Dr. Isaac Adler opined that as cigarette smoking increased, so did the number of cases of lung cancer! But the intense lobbying by the most powerful industry made sure that this was not highlighted!
It would not be until 1950 that medical research would reveal that tobacco was the most significant cause of lung cancer.
Landmark studies by Doll and Hill in 1950 in the United Kingdom and Hammond and Horn in 1954 in the United States forced the discipline of epidemiology to officially recognize cigarette smoking as the primary cause of lung cancer!
Subsequent lung cancer research demonstrating the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer prompted the U.S. Surgeon General and Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom to publically issue official public health reports condemning the cigarette habit as dangerous to health!
If you must give Nobel or Peace prize to anyone, it must be for these amazing people who bought the evidence to light and made it as open as possible!
There were times when the tobacco industry had so much power (they still do!) that they had even urged medical personnels to advice smoking to relieve stress! Even women, teens and children were targeted as potential customers with varying degrees of success!
During the World War I as well as World War II, cigarettes were given to soldiers in their ration packages and tobacco use increased 346% by 1920. Soldiers who were abstainers from tobacco came back from both World Wars addicted to cigarettes!
Tobacco companies even expanded their aggressive cigarette marketing to women as early as 1918, as a symbol of “liberation and equality” ! They even had a tagline for that later on called, “You have come a long way, baby!”!
Even in movies, the ‘manly’ guys always used to smoke! The other non ‘manly’ guys like me were shown to cough when asked to smoke!
Even in my hostel, the macho dudes were the ones with the smoke in the hand especially during the exam time! There were some guys whose rooms were not visible because of the smoke! This was also because during the exam times not many could afford cigarettes apparently! Instead they used to get the BIDI! That was a bunch of smoke which was so cheap apparently! Of course you had to smoke more to get the same ‘effect’! Also it had no filter!
During my first week in the hostel my senior took a huge puff and blew the smoke over me during a ‘session’! I held my neck and told him that I am not able to breath! I was fine since I actually tolerate the smell of cigarette really well and can recognise it even in little quantity! But that one ‘act’ spread like, well, ‘smoke!’ and the seniors stopped smoking when they were having a ‘session’ with me!
So, smoking does not make anyone ‘macho’; it only makes them a fool! You are not smoking the cigarette, the cigarette is smoking your life slowly!
Even on gunpoint, I cannot have the heart to tell anyone that smoking once in a while is ok, since it is NOT!
Smoking is worse than a nuclear bomb since nuclear energy can still be used for good! Speaking of nuclear energy brings into mind the birthday celebrity and father of nuclear science in India; Homi Jehangir Bhabha!
Now do the one good habit which is easy to do! Sleep on time!
Shubh ratri!
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