The Alienation Of Tobacco Users

I am a smoker, I reek, the house reeks, my car reeks, what is there for a non-smoker to like? I fully understand the whys, medical and social, of our being shunned by many. I live with it and in fact revel in it as I am, by nature, asocial.
Addendum: In all honesty I believe we smokers do the alienating. Society was just too polite years ago and put up with the stench and clouds of smoke. I tend to shy away from the overly perfumed in the same manner as non-smokers move upwind when in my company and I'm smoking a pipe or cigarette.

I don't care for most people so I don't mind if they don't care for me.
If everyone likes you, you are doing something wrong.

We've gone from a society where tobacco use was all but obligatory to one where it is largely forbidden. I was a non-smoker on more than one cross-country bus trip where I had to get out at rest stops and walk around the block to replace nicotine with oxygen in my bloodstream. World figures in World War II each had to adopt a trademark smoking habit -- FDR with his cigarette holder, Stalin with his pipes, Churchill with his cigars. My dad commuted in the smoker car with his pipes and cigars. GI's received free cigarettes. Now even the most discreet, careful and moderate tobacco use excites a secular Puritanism that is remarkable to behold. Perhaps people are longing for a certainty about something, anything, where very little certainty exists. The only aspect of my life that causes more disbelief and consternation is being a Vietnam vet. Some of my work colleagues would go into a kind of trance of disbelief. I'm not someone with any military presence. It's just a bridge too far. It's as if I've told people I was a circus lion tamer; it's just a little more than they can connect with me.

It's to make marijuana and its tendancy to make the sheeple more agreeable more desirable.

I have, in the past, smoked a lot of marijuana. I have nothing bad to say about it.

Not that its bad, just to villainize tobacco to open the way for it.

That's :rofl:
Deathmetal, that was intolerant drivel. How could you post such nonsense? The Tolerant deviants that roam the cyber hallways of Pipesmagazine.com will certainly not stand for that Right-Wingerdly point of view. Shame on you. :evil:
Embers, quite right. Cannabis is perfectly acceptable, but that other herb is contraband and you will be punished. The thing that strikes me is tobacco is legal. Cannabis is not, at least by the FED's.
P.S. I never associated Liberty with Being Right-Wing. Just Americanism.

Liberals still adhere to that principle. The author appears to be conflating persons with a liberal mindset with American Political Liberals. There are no more liberal persons amongst the American Political Liberals than there are persons of a conservative mindset amongst the American Political Conservatives, which is to say VERY few. The overwhelming majority of the members of both groups simply have a dogma; a boilerplate set of opinions more akin to an unquestionable religious faith than a conclusion derived from any meaningful exploration of individual topics, such as tobacco use.

Liberals still adhere to that principle. The author appears to be conflating persons with a liberal mindset with American Political Liberals. There are no more liberal persons amongst the American Political Liberals than there are persons of a conservative mindset amongst the American Political Conservatives, which is to say VERY few. The overwhelming majority of the members of both groups simply have a dogma; a boilerplate set of opinions more akin to an unquestionable religious faith than a conclusion derived from any meaningful exploration of individual topics, such as tobacco use.

Click to expand...

Makes sense.

Conservativism is not an ideology nor does it hold a dogma. Of course you have the hyphenated conservative crap, which is all soft Statism. Pure American Conservatism is Lassiez Faire, which borrowed exclusively from the Enlightment. I am currently comprising a thesis, which states that Modern American Conservatism ( Meaning since the country's founding, Our Founders didn't claim to be conservative by the way) can trace its origins from Empedocles. Conservatives believe government has only one use, to uphold the Civil Society, and at any point we can destroy the Social Contract. Read the Declaration Of Independence, it's all there.

Ehh. If my tobacco doesn't drive people away, my winning personality does. If that doesn't work, I usually keep a few rotten fruits and vegetables with me.
The main political problem in America (with tobacco and pretty much everything else) is both sides claim they want people left alone to pursue happiness, but neither party will leave people alone. It's like living between two bored and nosy spinster aunts.

More liberal vs. conservative BS. It's a continuum between extremes and has more than one axis folks, and no two people occupy the same space on it.
I like the alienation and you won't catch me whining about it. I spend ZERO bucks on Christmas and Birthday cards.
Now if you'll excuse me I have some Ayn Rand books to burn, pot to smoke, briar pipes to clean, communism to spread, Scotch to drink and hard working tax payers to mooch off of. Good night gentlemen, you know who you are. :nana:

When it comes to cigarettes, I don't disagree with the Anti-Tobacco movement. Just remember that cultures move in swings, tobacco consumption last centurey was obscene, thus we're at the hight of restriction right now.

It might stay that way for a while, but after another hundred years or so people will go back to not caring (Pipes and Cigars will probably become "normal" again. It's all a matter of living in a culture of moderation rather than excess).

Mayfair, send the Rand books my way. We place them with low income families, the children read them and write essays to win scholarships for college. You know, work hard for the free education.

Yet, even though smoking rates have declined in the West, the fact there are still 10million puffers suggests smoking remains a pretty normal activity.

Click to expand...

I have no way of knowing if that 10 million figure is accurate, but that is actually a rather small minority. Not nearly enough to label something a "normal activity" IMO. Especially if that is 10 million "in the West", meaning all Western countries as stated. One thing's for sure, there are FAR less tobacco users now than there were in past decades.
As for the alienation, I would simply pose the same question I always do to non-tobacco users: Why is there an ever-increasing epidemic of cancer of all types among non-tobacco users, including and especially in children?
I would also say this regarding the alienation: It is, imo, primarily a programmed, Pavlovian response people have...the result of propaganda...the "2nd and 3rd hand smoke" bullshit. If they were propagandized in the same relentless manner about any number of other things they are exposed to and ingest on a daily basis they'd suddenly respond the same way to those things.
Instead when they or their children are diagnosed with cancer they will simply accept without question that it's not possible to know what caused it...because that's what the cancer industry wants them to believe...and they'll go on ingesting the same toxins every day that "normal" people always do, in their food, water and air.
It's a very common sight to see someone jogging down the sidewalk on a busy street engulfed in exhaust fumes, even though they could easily be jogging elsewhere away from the cars. These same people would probably freak out if they got a whiff of tobacco smoke.

^^^ The article is from the U.K.

There are 55 + million cig smokers in the U.S. alone.
In addition, almost 55.8 million Americans (21.3 percent of the population) were current cigarette smokers; 12.4 million smoked cigars; more than 8.8 million used smokeless tobacco; and over 2.3 million smoked tobacco in pipes. (2013)
Since pipe smoking has increased over the last 3 years, we should be at least 3 plus million strong.

@jack: that makes much more sense...I thought that 10 million figure sounded strange...especially "in the west".

FWIW, I did a little web searching, and the number that seems to come up consistently is more like 15% in the U.S.

Fewer than 15% of U.S. adults currently smoke, according to new preliminary government statistics from the first half of this year.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/17/health/smoking-rate-decline/

Click to expand...

Who knows, these are guestimates. The current U.S. population is north of 320 million, so we are still around 50 million cig smokers using the 15% figure, plus more pipe and cigar smokers which have been growing and not declining.
CDC says 40 million
Cigarette Smoking in the United States. Percentage of U.S. adults aged 18 years or older who were current cigarette smokers in 2014:8.

16.8% of all adults (40 million people): 18.8% of males, 14.8% of females.

More than 29 of every 100 non-Hispanic American Indians/Alaska Natives (29.2%)Dec 11, 2015

CDC - Fact Sheet - Fast Facts - Smoking & Tobacco Use

www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data.../fact.../fast_facts/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention