May I smoke tobacco?

[st_felicity]

I ocassionally smoke cigarettes. I can choose to or not; I do not have a tendancy toward addiction. I have smoked sometimes more, and sometimes not at all, for long periods. I recognize that smoking is not healthy, but I will sometimes decide to anyway. In this case, is smoking a sin that needs confessing?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

st_felicity:

In this case, is smoking a sin that needs confessing?

Assuming that you are of a legal age to smoke, no. To date, anyway, the Church does not forbid people to smoke tobacco. It only cautions that temperance be observed:

The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air
(CCC 2290, emphasis in original).

Smoking can become an occasion of sin when one smokes intemperately, or when one’s smoking endangers others (e.g., an unborn child), but it is not inherently sinful. If you decide to give up smoking entirely – for health reasons and/or in order to offer up a luxury to God – that may be a meritorious act.