Smoking. It's been in the press a bit lately. Cigarette packets getting a proposed 'makeover' of olive green packets to deter people from smoking. Oh it's such a vile, disgusting habit isn't it? Is it?

I personally don't care if someone smokes. If it's in my face I blow it out of my face. I'm not adverse to it, I just don't want to smell it really. But I'm not going to tell someone else not to do it or look at them in disgust. What do I care? I don't. It's an individual's choice. I don't select friends or men on whether they smoke because it's not an issue for me. And honestly, some people who smoke.... I can neither smell it on them nor taste it when they kiss me. If I have tasted it, the taste has actually been nice... probably just this one person in particular really.

Oh it causes cancer and it costs so much money in health, blah blah blah.

Let's be honest here. Tobacco is big business. Companies have gotten RICH selling cancer sticks to people for a really long time. You know what else has gotten rich on tobacco.... the economy. Smoking and its health effects have a huge impact on the economy. Sure a lot of money is pumped into trying to stop smoking, to make people quit, to help people who develop illness overcome it. Companies have gotten rich. Pharmaceutical companies with their drugs. Hospitals and research centres need money to fund their research on how to STOP cancer caused by smoking. This creates jobs does it not? Oh I can hear you screaming at me as you read this. How cold hearted can I be you ask? How can I be so naive and uneducated?

Break it down to the facts. Its an industry that creates. Absolutely it's fucked up that the cigarette companies withheld vital information to their customers that their product can cause cancer. That it creates serious health risks. Tobacco companies should be prosecuted for this. However, now that we know what tobacco does to us, is it not up to the individual to choose whether they smoke or not? Sure you can go on about children being led astray and thinking it's 'cool' to smoke and once they start they can't stop because their addicted to the nicotine....

It will always be an ongoing debate. There will always be two sides. One for, one against.

I lost my grandmother to lung cancer. She smoked for a really really long time. 40 years or more. She stopped maybe 15 years before she died. Had she known about the risks would she have stopped or not smoked? I don't know. You'd have to ask her.